阅读理解

       Today，I read an interesting article about television viewing. In one experiment, families were paid to stop watching TV for either a week or a month. Many could not complete the task and some families even fought, verbally or physically. It was quite interesting and now I will say something about TV.

      After TV became a product most families could afford，people bought and started to watch their new TVs. Both adults and children became less creative in problem solving, less able to persevere (坚持)in tasks, and less tolerant of unstructured time.

       In my family, we grew up with the TV on. Every weekend, we watched Gun Smoke and Bonanza together as a family. TV provides us with a comfortable background when we want to learn a foreign language at home, and it entertains us cheaply with live action sports, incomparable performing arts and important events of the world. In addition, it educates us about everything from the cells in our body to the galaxies in the universe.

      Perhaps it's not even practical to live without television unless our views change abruptly as we get older. I don't think that TV damages us so much as it robs us of time that could be spent doing other things such as learning new skills, getting some exercise or doing volunteer work.

      I was lucky to have a family that watched TV together. Today there seems to be a TV in every room of the house and there's no need to agree on a program to watch. To watch TV or not to watch TV is more of a question for adults than for us，and even though we all say we want to cut down the time we spend in front of the tube, we never really do. TV_has_us_hypnotized!