Essay Sample

How do movies or television influence people’s behavior? Use reasons and specific examples to support your answer.
Do movies and television affect our behavior? A special concern is whether movies and television make children and society more violent. I believe that movies and television do influence our behavior, both for the better and for the worse.Movies do make people more violent. The more we see violent acts on television, the less sensitive we become to them. Eventually violence doesn’t seem wrong .we may even commit violent acts ourselves. This is especially true because we don’t always realize that violence has consequences. Actors can be killed and come back for another movie. Sometimes we confuse that with reality. We forget that killing someone is permanent.Movies and television also influence our behavior because they make us less active. Looking at films is a passive activity. If we watch too much, we become unhealthy, both mentally and physically. We stop using our own imagination when we see things acted out for us. Mental laziness becomes physical laziness; we’d rather watch sports on to than play sports ourselves. we’d rather visit with the characters on “Seinfeld” or “Friends” than go chat with our own neighbors. Imaginary people have exciting lives. Is it any wonder that some people would rather live a fantasy life than their own?Of course, watching movies and television can also be good for us. It can give us a broader window on the world. For example, seeing movies can expose us to people of different races and cultures. We can then overcome some prejudices more easily. Recently there have been more handicapped people in films, and this also helps reduce prejudice.The best influence on our behavior is that movies and television reduce stress. Watching films, we can escape our own problems for a little while. Also, sometime movies show positive ways to resolve problems we all face. While TV and movies shouldn’t be a way to hide from life, sometimes they can help us cope.It is true that movies and television can influence our behavior negatively. However, I also believe that they influence our behaviors in positive ways. How they affect you depends on how much you watch, what you watch, and how you respond to what you watch.


Some people believe that television has destroyed communication among friends and family. I think this is an exaggeration. In my opinion, whether or not television hurts communication depends on what type of program is being viewed. More importantly, it depends on the type of viewer.There are empty programs and educational programs. Empty programs do not challenge people. They have just enough storyline to keep them from switching channels. There are also passive and active viewers. A passive viewer will just watch television without thinking about what be or she seeing. The combination of an empty program and a passive viewer makes communication unlikely. Passive viewers just continue to watch, actually enjoying the fact that they don’t have to think. They won’t break away to talk about programming with friends and family. Even with better programming, passive viewers still won’t think or communicate much. The probably even prefer the empty program because the better programming is too much work.On the other hand, active viewers watching educational programming always want to share what they see with friends and family. “Educational” doesn’t necessarily mean documentaries on BBS. They could be dramas with realistic relationships or action shows with clever plotlines. When active viewers watch programs, they have ideas and talk about them with others. Good programming inspires them to change their thinking and their lives. Unlike passive viewers, they don’t want to watch more and more without thinking.Television may destroy communication among passive viewers. Those viewers probably don’t want to communicate with friends and family much anyway. For active viewers who already enjoy communicating, television is actually helpful!