Television and Community: Friend or Foe?

When I was second grader at elementary school, I learned that television is one of tertiary needs of people (the needs that not too urgent to be fulfilled and is associated with luxury). Now, television became one of secondary needs. Nearly every house in Indonesia has one TV-set; some of them even have more than one. Almost everyone from every kind of age--even the youngest child who was just able to see--is watching them. They have no idea that television, when used to an extent, could destroy family life and sense of community, at least in my opinion.

It’s not impossible for television to destroy family life. Television is a rapidly data-giver in form of visual images. It’s too rapid that its users are unable to sort and filter those data into “acceptable”, “unacceptable”, and “dangerous”. They are forced to accept those data bluntly. And, kids are the greatest data-keeper; they could accept every data from everywhere. If “dangerous”, false beliefs were planted on those data and a kid watched it, he/she would accept those beliefs and practice it in his/her life. This could lead to destroying family life if that kid chose to defend those beliefs and fight his/her own parents.

Television also can destroy sense of community. The effort to watch television is not big at all; we just have to turn it on and watch, and it happens inside our house too. The effort to socialize, however, is not as small as that. We must go somewhere and meet persons, then attempt to converse with them. Even kids know that watching TV is simpler than socialize, and people tend to choose simpler things for them. For example, there are children in a family I know that don’t socialize very much. They seldom want to go outside to meet their relatives. When their parents ask them why, they replied that they want to catch some TV shows. If all kids these days behave like this, it’s possible that any sense of community will soon be destroyed.

Despite its bad effect, people don’t need to banish it completely. Those bad effects can be countered by good influence and filtering from parents, such as showing them what’s right and what’s wrong and keeping them company while watching TV. And also, there are good programs that could be useful for people, such as documentary and news.

In conclusion, despite the fact that it contains some good program, television has some bad effects when it comes to community, and it needs to be countered by good influence from one’s surroundings such as parents and friends. In the future, people behind TV shows should create lots more of good program, and the government should support it.

Muhammad Ferdyansyah Sechan 16107056