Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Entry Journal #35 Rough Draft

Name: Dung Do
Class: Composition 4C
Date: 12/5/07

Advantages of Watching Television

Nowadays, television is the most popular media of human modern life. Every house has at least one TV inside. TV has been playing a role in our daily life since it was invented in 1940s. Although more and more people think that TV just brings disadvantages to them, especially to children, it also has three main advantages. By watching TV, people can know everything happening around them, can learn different languages, and can also relax their minds.

The first and most important advantage is to get information. People usually watch TV to know what happening in their surrounding world, so they like to watch news. News is the information given by people working in broadcast stations. A news program always broadcasts both national and international news, so that people watching news on TV can increase their awareness of the world. For example, when someone watches CNN channel, he/she may know the candidates of the presidential election next year, or how many people have died or injured in Iraq war. Moreover, TV introduces current events. They are some special things or cultures which are going to happen in a country in the near future. When any event is coming up, TV has many advertisements about that holiday, such as which commodities will be on sale. It is a good information for customers. For instance, Christmas, the current event is coming up soon, there are lot of news and advertisements about this holiday on TV, so people know and go shopping to choose the best and cheapest things to prepare for their holiday. In addition, TV has news about other cultures in the world, like the New Year holiday in Eastern countries, such as China, Vietnam. It helps people who intend to travel know more about manners and customs in which countries they will arrive. Another information people can get when watching TV is weather. People usually watch the weather forecast before traveling or going outside their places. Some times they watch just this program to know about tomorrow’s weather, like the Santa Ana winds last month here, everyone felt uncomfortable and wanted to know when they stopped. By staying at home and watching TV, people can not only know but also see everything around the world, from news, events to weather.

The second advantage is to learn different languages. With the strong development of cable television, TV no longer limits the number of channels within a country or state, it can broadcast any channel in the world. That helps someone learn and practice different languages. When watching a foreign channel, it means that channel is not his/her native language channel, he/she may improve his/her listening skill, vocabularies, and may understand the way people talk in order to speak fluently. For instance, one learns English, and she wants to improve her English, so she usually watches TV shows. Certainly, she can learn some more slangs and vocabularies by listening to what people talking with each other. Maybe the first time she cannot understand at all, but after one or two months, her English will be surely better. Spending an amount of time everyday to watch TV is not wasteful at all, it helps language learners progress their studies.

The third advantage is to relax. Besides getting information and learning foreign languages, they watch TV just for fun. Most of TV shows are funny, such as soap opus on TV. When watching them, people will laugh a lot, and then they can drive away their stress after working hard all day. For example, the TV show “Friends” has been very popular until now although it was ended a couple years ago. People watched it throughout ten years because of its attractive plot. TV also has many channels for children. One of them is Disney Channel. It is a very famous channel for children. Moreover, TV also has gameshows. Some are interesting, some are useful. In addition, watching TV is a way to kill time. For example, a person has to wait for another person, and he has nothing to do, turning on the TV and watching is the best way. With the variety of channels on it, he can choose any channel he likes. Furthermore, cable television broadcasts 24/24, so viewers can watch every time they want. Watching TV is such a good way of relaxing someone’s mind.

In conclusion, TV has its own advantages. Although being replaced by computers and Internet, TV still is the best choice for everyone in the everywhere to get indispensable information, to help learning foreign languages and to relax.