People watch TV for psychological reasons as opposed to simple laziness.

cowboy0108 (PRO)

When most people see a person who is fat from sitting down and watching TV constantly, they assume that he is lazy. I disagree. People watch TV because they have psychological needs that they need met. I am not going to say that laziness is not a factor, but I will say that it is not the major factor.

1. People watch TV to escape from reality.

Reality is harsh. That is just the truth of it. The more harsh it is, the more you want out of it. What is the best way(other than suicide) to escape from reality? Watch TV. It does not take much to know that poor people are more prone to watching TV. The poorest people that I know watch TV significantly more than the wealthy ones that I know. It is because their reality is so much more harsh. Through TV, a person can get out of their dead end job and step inside the action packed world of their crime show or zombie apocolypse shows. So no, people do not necessarily watch TV becuase they are lazy, a person who is purely lazy and has no psychological needs or a good life would not even turn on the TV because they would have no reason to.

2. People watch TV because it meets their psychological needs. I brought part of this up in my first point. If a person needs love, they will watch a love story. If a person needs adrenaline, they will watch an action show. Think about this. What makes the Spiderman movies appeal to so many people? Young Peter Parker was a nerd who had little going for him. However, he got bitten by a spider and he was suddenly Spiderman. This nerd from Queens could take out the biggest baddest super villians in the city. This show appeals to so many people because they can see themselves in the character. People want to be able to imagine that something extraordinary could happen to them and they can be great. This meets their psychological need of action, acheivement, and love more so because they can see themselves in the character, Peter Parker. Look also at sports. These appeal to people because it allows them to have hope and faith in a team. They need sport shows to bring those things back into their life because they just may not feel it outside of the sports game.

3. People watch TV because they need closure and often, happy endings. This is probably my weakest point because not all shows provide this closure, but most do. Most all detective shows end with them catching the villain. The romance shows end with the couple getting together. The doctor shows end with everyone living. Life, however, does not have happy endings. Life does not provide closure. Closure and happiness are major psychological needs. Again, this relates with points two and one. People watch TV because it meets their psychological need. I only put this in a seperate category because this is a different set of needs and are met more with the setup of the show as opposed to the actual story.

Tell me, would a person with a happy life who has all of their psychological needs met even bother to turn on the TV. If a person is truly lazy, they would sit down on the couch for hours with or without the TV. However, this is not true for most people. People NEED TV.

Return To Top | Posted:

2013-11-12 03:36:09

| Speak Round

admin (CON)

My argument in a nutshell

The problem with pro's argument is that it never explains why people watch TV as opposed to meeting their psychological needs in some other way. My contention is that people choose TV as a medium because it's really convenient to do so. With the advent of remote controls they don't even need to move from their beds. So even if they are fulfilling a psychological need, they are doing it in the laziest possible way - by doing nothing. I call that simple laziness, and that's the reason why people choose to watch television.

My case today is that watching TV for psychological reasons is NOT OPPOSED to being simply lazy. Instead, the two are completely complementary. There are many excuses people have for watching TV, some of them psychological, but they're all premised around the fact that television makes our lives a little bit easier. If anything, laziness is a more important factor than any psychology.

Escapism

Pro posits this as the main psychological rational for TV. If everyone always tuned in to watch Rainbow Dash and her awesome shenanigans, this might actually be a valid argument - but it fails to explain why very consistently, the highest rated shows on television are news or sports events - the two types of shows that are the LEAST escapist in nature. Look how many TV shows are talk shows or reality shows. Even shows that might seem escapist go to extreme lengths to make themselves seem real and relevant. That's why shows like CSI go to such lengths to make their cases appear real, even if the actual science is completely lacking.

That's not to say people don't have a need for escapism. It's just that to escape that dead-end job, laziness not withstanding, wouldn't it be much better to go play catch with your kids in the park? Bake a cake? Go to the gym? Go to the beach? Go larping as zombies and take over the town? (this kind of apocalypse event actually happens once a year in Christchurch, NZ)

Self Perception

Con's point that humans seek out images to validate perceptions, assumptions or beliefs is valid. Again, this is not a justification for television. Were those same people to read a book, they could receive these messages in a far more meaningful way - ie not condensed into a little 1-hour slot with annoying ads throughout. Rather than watching sport, they could achieve the same psychological goals and get fit in the process by actually doing sport. Why have hope and faith in a team when you could have hope and faith in your own team? Rather than watching Peter Parker do spider stuff, they could always help out the community without even having superpowers. Isn't that ultimately much more empowering? That you don't need a weird spider bite to make a difference?

There is another factor that explains why people watch TV in this circumstance. Laziness.

Closure

Pro is completely right that this is his weakest point. Not only does life often provide closure, or TV shows do this no more often than life - if you really want closure, watching TV will not solve the problem. Say I got robbed, and then watched a TV program about robbers behind bars. Does that give me closure about my personal robbery? Of course not. It would be far better to instead go to the police about the robbery. If somebody is actually this addicted to television, that television actually provides closure in their life, then they have no life. They are completely, evidently and possibly hopelessly disconnected from reality.

Closure as a psychological need CANNOT be met by television, even if it could there are better ways to meet it, and even if there weren't then television wouldn't meet it particularly effectively. This point is akin to saying "the government should give everyone free lawnmowers because lawnmowers will make you all happy" - a statement that cannot be true, even if it were it's a non-sequiter because there could be better ways of making people happy, and even if lawnmowers were the only way to be happy, people wouldn't be very happy at all.

Conclusion

Fat slobs are exactly that - fat slobs. Thin slobs are still slobs. All the psychological needs of television are better met in other, slightly more strenuous ways. It's the instinct to choose the easy way that drives us to television. There's nothing wrong with this kind of simple laziness if we don't overdo it. But the fact remains that no matter what the underlying need that drives us, the choice to use television to fulfill that is universally informed by laziness.

The resolution is negated.

Return To Top | Posted:

2013-11-14 19:24:58

| Speak Round

cowboy0108 (PRO)
Round Forfeited

Return To Top | Posted:

2013-11-17 19:25:01

| Speak Round

People watch TV for psychological reasons as opposed to simple laziness.

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