After a tedious day of sitting at office desks or learning about chemistry in class, many British families love to relax and unwind to an hour or two of television. Whether it’s your grandma’s time to watch “Coronation Street” or you’re watching a new series on Netflix, television is an immensely popular past-time for billions of people around the globe. However, many people have often compared watching television to be a lazy hobby, but is that necessarily true?

One may say that television is harmful because it can scare young children. Popular news channels such as the BBC can feature terrifying footage of war and violence, which could traumatize children from a young age. As well as this, research from Johns Hopkins connected having a bedroom with a TV at 5.5 years of age with poor social skills and poor sleep, published in the October 2007 issue of Pediatrics, so it has been proved that this sort of addiction is psychologically damaging.

On the other hand, television is good because it develops your understanding of the real world. One prevalent discussion about media is representation - and in the 21st century, there has been a steady rise in POC and healthy female representation. This, as well as media tackling real-life problems, is important for kids watching TV from a young age. They can learn about themselves or life in general from TV - though it is also essential to go outside and eventually witness it in real life. 

Also, to debunk the popular myth - television screens don’t directly damage your eyes. According to Dr Lee Duffner of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, watching television up close or for a long time will not cause irreversible damage to the eyes. However, binge-watching can cause eye strain and fatigue, but getting some rest can solve that quickly.

In conclusion, while television can obviously take up an unhealthy portion of your lifestyle, it's still important to stay up to date with the world and people should be allowed to watch shows that give them serotonin.