Hidden Influence

Hidden Influence

Influence is defined as: the act or power of producing an effect without apparent force or direct authority.

Julius Caesar was a play written by William Shakespeare. At the time, the Queen of England was old and had not named a successor, which lead to worries of war after her death. The play symbolized the general anxiety of England -being they were in the same situation as Caesar- and influenced the English monarchy to begin calling plays and other forms of entertainment heresy.

Over time not much has changed with the close relationship between entertainment and influence. From MP3 players to satellite TV, entertainment is able to influence all types of social statues. The middle and low classes are no exception. Out of all the entertainment there is, I believe television has the most influence. I believe that television influence causes a lot of problems in middle and low class family households.

In the1960s, many intelligent people called the television set an idiot box. They believed that the idea of having people sit in front of a glowing square would never work, and even if it did, it would only turn people into mindless zombies. They were right in one of two instances. In my opinion, people have become zombie-like. Television has dominated, influenced, and programmed people's minds -especially children's minds- to such an extent that they barely think for themselves. For example: let's say that there is a popular sketch comedy show hosted by a name brand comedian whose writers have come up with an appealing catch phrase for the entertainer to say over and over again. Let's say the given phrase becomes his trademark. The next thing that follows is every dunce out there mimicking the comic's work with such pride and enthusiasm that I start to believe they receive a royalty check every time they do an imitation.

Young adults also tend to pick up the bad values and ideas that televisions shows like MTV transmit from home to home. MTV is a television show on the cable network that targets teenagers and claims to push rules to the limit, when in reality, all MTV is doing is feeding a juvenile's hunger to rebel. MTVs stand against censorship is nothing more than a marketing plan. A few of the immature actions that are accepted on MTV as popular things to do are: disrespect toward adults and inappropriate language. I understand slang is a part of teenage culture but when kids begin writing exactly how they are speaking, I believe they invert their progress and cause themselves to play catch up later.

I also believe that televisions influence and acceptance by society has caused the time families spend together to be unproductive. Unsupervised children seem to be the biggest targets. According to http://www.limitv.org/stats.htm, North Carolina fourth graders watch an average of four hours of TV per day, and 25% of the children watch six hours or more. It seems as soon as they wake up, they are plugged into early morning cartoons and TV programs. If they decide to go to school, the kids will get a break