Less time on AnswerBag.

takes up to much free time

You don't interact with real people.

Personally for me, it gives me a headache. But other than that, everyone I know that watches a lot of TV, all they seem to want to talk about are the shows they watch. So I guess the disadvantage there is it can put limits on your conversations.

You can become addicted to it.

I would have said less time on answerbag but I'm doing both!!

You know the kick stand on a bicycle? T.V. CAN be like a kick-stand for the mind. Although stillness is SO needed these days, where the mind is concerned, the "stillness" implied by the kick stand analogy leans (pun intended) more toward disengagement than stillness.

Well the guys presented a good list of disadvantages here. What I can add is: - TV kills your imagination. Here I'd like to paraphrise the words of Milorad Pavich, serbian writer. "Each of us unleashes our thought for a walk like a monkey on a lead. When you read, you always heave 2 such monkeys, one of which is yours and other is someone's else." When you watch TV, you have a monkey and a huge wolf, and you's better be cautious 'cause wolf doesn't eat what monkey eats. In fact, it eats monkeys When you read a book, you imagine characters, settings, you imagine all the situations. When you watch TV, your magination is absent. It is temporarily dead. Someone else has decided for you the looks of the characters, setting, all the images... Somebody directs your attention. You do not control this... And the more you watch TV, the largest part of your lifetime it takes, the less you control your life.. - TV is a means of propaganda, the most agressive propaganda ever. It dictates lifestyles, tastes, fashion, desires of modern people. Actually, it tells you what is cool and what is not, it teaches you patterns of behaviour, and since many movies shown on TV are stupid, violent and shallow, you learn these patterns of behavious and thinking. And of course, advertisement. Advertisement is the main reason (along with political advertisement) why this medium exists. Advertisement became so global that you cannot even notice that the intention of certain movie, program, news is to make you want something. It's awful. It manipulates people as Pavlov's dogs (hopefully you remember that Absolut advertisement ) - Finally, the most important thing against TV is that it is not real. It's virtual. And unlike Internet (like these forums for instance )) you don't participate in this reality. You don't create it. You just watch. The more time you waste in this virtual world, the less time you have for your real life

Getting sucked into a storyline and getting the feeling that you 'have' to stay in and watch your show rather than do anything you might have planned.

Couch potato waistline.

If I were watching t.v. I wouldnt be answering this question

missing out on life

TV programs could lead us to become a TV holic by spending long hours watching TV which can case lots of health problems, such as sight problems and obesity. In addition lots of people, especially children and teens are used to watch destructive and violent programs, and this kind of programs will affect them negatively, also they will acquire bad habits by learning every bad thing shows on the TV. So children and teens might behave on aggressive and violent way with their own families and friends.

I agree that on TV are often shown all sorts of murdering-scenes but TV doesn't compel us to watch this programs. TV only gives us the opportunity to watch it and even if there are any inappropriate programs we can ignore them. Moreover, I don't think that we have to ignore programs since most TV's have so many channels that I get lost; so you can easily choose the most suitable programs for youyour children and even limit some channels you don't want your children to watch. To sum up.

kmcj

Depression

It makes you a dull person. It kills your imagination. It encourages complacency. The vast majority of the programming is really really bad, and good shows are almost always aborted. If you force yourself to enjoy the shows, you are necessarily disengaging the majority of your brain. It tells you what to think. It burns less calories than sitting and thinking. It isn't real, and it can never love you back.