Номер 3, страница 87 - гдз по английскому языку 8 класс учебник Вербицкая, Маккинли

Unit ten.

The media.

Track seventy-five.

TV or not TV.

Anti-TV groups are organizing another screen-free week. Helen Clark asks if TV is really such a bad thing.

The average family spends four to five hours every day watching TV, but only thirty-five minutes having a meaningful conversation.

Screen-free week started in nineteen ninety-four in the USA. It was then called TV Turnoff Week, after concerns about the health, social, and educational impact television viewing was having on young people.

Since then, every year during the last week in April, people are invited to turn off their TVs for a week, and to turn on life. To do something useful instead of just sitting and passively watching TV.

Organizers in the USA, UK, France, Brazil, and Spanish-speaking countries, believe that over three hundred million people have taken part in the turnoff, with millions participating each year.

But is TV really such a bad thing? Can't TV educate people? Doesn't TV news tell us more about what is happening in the world than any other type of media?

Anti-TV groups don't agree. Television is hopeless at explaining the reasons behind the news, they argue. We often watch shocking TV pictures of wars, social problems or famine, but we often don't understand why these problems started.

Campaigners also say that watching TV is a passive activity. The average person spends two months of the year in front of the television. This means that many people don't get enough exercise or use their brains.

There are other negative effects too. Families spend less time talking to each other, and TVs are often used as babysitters.

Campaigners are also worried about the influence that TV has on children and young adults. For example, the average nineteen-year-old American has watched three hundred fifty thousand commercials and eighteen thousand murders on television.

There are serious arguments for turning off TV, but what do anti-TV campaigners recommend instead of TV entertainment? Have a look at their websites, read their leaflets, and you will find lots of ideas. Go to the library, learn to play a musical instrument, play with your pets or start a diary. Or you could learn about your family history, do some charity work, or go to a museum. Read a newspaper, or listen to the radio.

So there are plenty of things to do. But are they as much fun as watching TV?

Annie Davidson, a lecturer in media studies from North London, doesn't think that watching TV is a passive activity.

On the contrary, it gives you something to talk about. For example, when we watch a soap opera, we form opinions about characters or stories. And if you don't watch it too much, TV isn't necessarily harmful for your health.

Life is busier and more stressful than ever before. We need a simple way to relax in the evenings, and television is perfect.

So will Annie Davidson take part in Screen-Free Week?

I'm certainly going to watch less. There's a great drama on the radio this evening.

The dates for Screen-Free Week are May the fourth to the tenth, two thousand fifteen, and May the second to the eighth, two thousand sixteen. Will you take part in it and find out the wide range of possibilities open to you when television is not a part of your life?