When Barbara Ehrenreich wrote The
Worst Years of Our Lives, she talks about how watching T.V is a waste of
time because all you see are people doing things that are out of the norm. Back
in the 1980s, Ehrenreich argues that people would watch televised people do
everyday things, but now, people are so lazy. However, this interpretation of
the T.V that Ehrenreich argues is completely false in that people don’t always
watch other people do dangerous things; and all the people who watch the T.V aren’t
lazy and don’t always sit on the couch. Other than the people who continuously
stare at the T.V for hours and hours, people who watch it in order to escape
the real world and stresses and to take a break. They can creatively imagine a
different perspective of life through the T.V and it personally makes them more
creative and imaginative. Therefore, Ehrenreich’s generic assertions about
television are false and totally stereotypical in terms of people who watch
television.
From the perspective of a student, a
student would watch television to take a break from school and enjoy it. They
can watch shows such as ‘Breaking Bad’ to see a different viewpoint in life-
seeing how chemists make and sell drugs. It can take them out of reality and
relieve them from the daily schoolwork. Also, these shows can generally produce
different creativities in a student’s head that can make them smarter.
Television’s not all about “people doing many things- chasing fast cars, drinking
lite beer, shooting each other at close range, etc.” Instead, they can watch
different shows about reality, or history channels that are both interesting,
fun and info.- filling.
When adults with jobs come home after
a long day at work, they often turn on their television to watch it. It
relieves them and makes them aware about certain important events that happen
in real life. Ehrenreich comes to too general of a conclusion in that she says
modern people “do nothing that is ever shown on television (because it is
either too dangerous or would involve getting up from the couch).” There are
too many things to watch on the television to say such a blunt statement. Overall,
watching the television can have a lot of good benefits if one uses it wisely
to help them such as relieving their stresses.
Of course when one eats chips all day
and sits on the couch to watch T.V, it is a complete waste of time. However,
Ehrenreich needs to specify on the type of people because an average person can
have many different opinions on watching television and it isn’t always about
watching something crazy happen. Ehrenreich’s passage in The Worst Years of
Our Lives is very candid and generic and has too many contradictions that
far outweigh what she is saying.
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