We are what we watch

I define we are what we watch as how we are brought up, the environment around us and what we see on TV and model our behaviour on.

Every day, people are engulfed with decisions. They could be significant or trivial. Understanding how people determine their choices is an area of cognitive behaviourism that has received attention. Many hypotheses have been constructed to clarify how people arrive at decisions, and what aspects alter decision making in the present and future. Our behaviour and choices are influenced by the lifestyle and environment we associate ourselves with. The environment can encourage or discourage communication among people and can affect people’s’ behaviours and motivations to act.

How we’re raised vastly defines what kind of person we become in life and the choices we make. For example, children who are brought up in a nurturing and supportive environment have a better academic performance in adulthood as the home environment influences are beneficial to their learning despite the child’s gender, socioeconomic position or family type. It has also been said that children brought up in an environment with parents that use negative criticism and physical abuse to discourage bad behaviour are prone to self doubt and fear as they believe that they are never good enough.

As a society, we’re doing no more than grumble about absurd advertising, bloodthirsty movies, indecent songs, antagonistic talk-shows, futile sitcoms though they degrade our minds. Poisoning by the media is more catastrophic than poisoning by cigarettes and chemicals because it destroys not only individuals, but also their culture. Culture is shared awareness, recognition and sensibility, the prevailing experience, the morality those stories accomplish. Culture is what we involve ourselves in as we grow up, what we recognise and apprehend so frequently that we call it reality. From culture comes management, performance and behaviour.

Many people are in agreement that TV has a plethora educational content. This may be true but, ‘ according to a study performed on Children’s Educational Programming on Television Stations by Communication Professor Barbara Wilson, one in eight TV shows (13%) labeled by broadcasters as educational/informational programming for children was rated as “ highly educational,” and about one in four (23%) was rated “ minimally educational.”’(Chamberlain)

How we are brought up as well as the performance and behaviour that makes us who we are is based on our environment. Each small thing that may seem insignificant may very well have a big impact on our future. The environment encourages or discourages our will to act on our thoughts and how we were raised as a child affects your behaviour.