Televison Technology making Literature Irrelevant Today
Televison Technology making Literature Irrelevant Today
The notion that television is doing irreparable harm to Literature is agreed by all: teachers, parents, governments but nobody seems to take a step forward to change this situation. The chatterbox kills your imagination, your creativity, your own thinking and only encourages passive enjoyment.
Although it is true that television is a unifying force in the world and it can reach every lost corner in the universe, it is also a powerful weapon to manipulate masses - and so are books. The only difference is that the experience of reading is associated with the experience of thinking. To be a television viewer is to be contented with second- hand experiences. Everything is done for you, even your own thinking. It is very easy to sit in an armchair, like a couch potato, to be spoon-fed by others.
If we have a look back on history when television did not exist, we could see how stimulating books were for people. They used to spend hours reading by the light of a candle, trying to picture what they were reading in their minds. Imagine the scops from the Anglo-Saxon times, reciting those long epic poems, trying to transport their audiences to the scene they were describing. Literature always tried to stimulate reaction and response in the receiver. Imagination opens a door, it provides you with a question but you have to provide the answer.
The big gap between Literature and television can be clearly seen when T.V scriptwriters try to adapt a best-seller book into a film. It is very difficult to convey the message and the force that written words carry, especially if the story has to be summarised and told in a limited period of time. Television destroys the “ second world “ –an area that exists in the limbo between the author and the reader- where the writer produces a literary belief that the reader willingly accepts as rules of that particular world.