Have you ever considered watching TV dangerous, well guess what it is, and many people could be watching it right now not knowing the dangers that lie beneath it. People should know what hours of pointlessly staring at a mind numbing box can do to you, and something should be done about this.

An average child watches seventeen hours of TV per week, and by the age of eighteen, two years of TV, that right two years. And if you think those two years don’t change a single thing, you’re wrong.

The first major factor that TV impacts, is health and obesity. Since your body requires movement, sitting in front of the TV actually makes you lose muscle. Eventually muscles could even fall of. Also you lose much energy and strength and TV can be the cause for insomnia. But most importantly you gain lots of fat sitting in front of the TV and not exercising, and this obesity can lead to serious health issues. Research showed that the risk of type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, heart attacks, and blood clots increased by 14 percent. Also other research has shown that there are many other serious health problems caused by TV. Some of these include early puberty and cancer from the radiation that the TV emits.

Another problem with TV is the commercials. When watching commercials, the viewer is unnoticeably getting brainwashed with whatever junk is on the commercials. Especially the advertisements on junk food are dangerous because they can lead to obesity. But this problem is easily avoided for people who still decide to watch TV: Turn of the TV when the commercials are on, and read a book or take a walk in the fresh air while the useless commercials are going on.

Other dangers of TV are social problems. TV sucks up all your time and there is less communication with your parents and with your friends and often children have trouble finding friends because of sitting in front of the TV too much. And having dialog is a necessity for human beings and TV makes them become mindless robots sitting in front a box. Also a theory arose of Autism being caused by watching TV at a tender age. California, Pennsylvania and Washington State Universities performed a study in the 70’s and 80’s and found that there was 17% higher risk of getting Autism if watching TV at a young age. Also, other less serious mental problems that watching TV can cause from the lack of social activity are stress, depression, aggression, and ADD.

Finally the danger to the brain: Herbert Krugman’s research proved that watching television numbs the left brain and leaves the right brain to perform all the duties. The left brain is the helps organizing, analyzing, and transmitting data. The right brain does not decode incoming signals well enough. Therefore it causes lack of organization and concentration. Also it causes emotional response rather than intelligent responses. More importantly it does not require almost any neurological activity. An electroencenograph (EEG) machine was used to determine brain activity and while watching TV, The movement of the brain activity slowed down. This is caused by the radiant light produced by cathode ray technology within the television set. So even if you are watching an educational program, the brain emits low levels of activity. So regardless of what you are watching TV turns off your nervous system and becomes inactive.

Think about it, next time when your bored instead of going to watch the pointless TV, losing concentration, losing muscles and gaining fat, why not just take out a book or go play outside with your friends.