Amarres modernos

Television addiction

By: Gabriela Montiel

Television addiction is a modern tendency related with the invention of television a decades ago, when people start to connect and know another and different realities trough the T.V.

Since the invention of t.v until our present time, this object has been present in the families and the houses in a significant way, because the people has received it like a way of entertainment, but also like a company, and even worst, like part of their lives, and their emotions.

T.V has a big influence in people´s behavior because brings a lot of codes, stories, lies, and situation that demand from the viewers an emotional answer.

The most relevant instrument in this case are the soap operas. This kind of programs are very present in the houses, and is a big problem because this programs are very emotional, and make that people feel happy, sad, worried or angry related with the stories that operas tell.

This is a big problem, because sometimes people live their lives through the operas and start to believe in every single thing and situation that happen in this kind of T.V programs , and they explain their lives with this kind of realities.

Sometimes the teenagers they want to be or want to live like the character of the opera, and sometime you can find this is related with money, being popular, have material things, and sometimes people become frustrated because they can´t be able to have the life that this characters have.

This is a modern problem, people have been building and living using this kind of stories and realities from T.V

The information that I found on the web express this kind of addiction is part of the behavioral addiction.

“The term addiction is also sometimes applied to compulsions that are not substance-related, such as compulsive shopping, sex addiction/compulsive sex, overeating, problem gambling and computer addiction. In these kinds of common usages, the term addiction is used to describe a recurring compulsion by an individual to engage in some specific activity, despite harmful consequences, as deemed by the user himself to his individual health, mental state, or social life”

We can see this is a real and serious problem, people living their lives through the T.V, building their personalities from the character and feel them frustrated because they can not reach that life´s style, and this is related with a bigger problem, that is the publicity.

This has influenced in a negative way the personal lives, because they want to be like t.v say thay have to be, to be beautiful, to be sexy, to be accepted, to be happy.

So, I believe this is a systemic problem, and we have to be conscious about it.

Related with the definition of television addiction:

“Television addiction is a disorder where the subject has a compulsion to watch television. The compulsion can be extremely difficult to control in many cases. It has many parallels to other forms of addiction, such as addiction to drugs or gambling, which create an altered mental state in the subject. It can occur at any age”.

Just to make a reflection...