Quality of Television in the United States

¶ … Quality of Television in the United States

Television may be viewed as a potentially dangerous device, as a device that has no useful purpose although it is great in the area of entertainment and still others many view television as a tool for use in their daily living. Certainly, Hollywood never runs out of ways to entertain the masses and is very experienced at doing just that. Television entertainment plays a large role in the lives of Americans who love hotdogs, baseball, and apple pie and as well love football and beer. The stress on a global basis is great during at time in history when World War III is just an insult away in the Middle East, when Americans have never been quite so restless and ill content with their government's actions and the skewing of Constitutional Rights.

Functions of Television

Television programming that is entertaining and lighthearted is good medicine no doubt after a long day at work and this type of programming has a place in the lives of individuals just as does the news and weather. However, there is a lacking in the quality of television programming in the present day. Not to be discouraged however, because as reported in Toeman's article is the interesting fact that the Apple TV "…isn't about being a standalone product, it's about being an awesome accessory to iPads (which is why it's effectively the top selling 'Internet streamer' over the past 3 years). Works much better when you think of it that way, the? The flagship feature of Apple TV? AirPlay. If you are "in" the iOS ecosystem, you know how well AirPlay works. If you don't, you are truly missing out -- and I don't mean you need to rush out to buy one, I mean you need to see how this works: user picks up iPhone/iPad, user finds content, user hits Play, user hits AirPlay to AppleTV, user sees content playing on TV, user enjoys cool refreshing beverage while watching Internet content on TV. Win." (Toeman, 2012, p.1) Additionally reported in the work of Toeman (2012) is that the cable, satellite, telephone providers "Have created APIs to communicate and/or control their set top boxes over either home networks and/or the Internet? That's right, the dinosaurs who are sitting on old technology have opened access to their (formerly) closed systems. If that's not sinking in clearly enough and I'm not saying this to pitch the company or anything, but by way of example, at Dijit we have the ability to interact with set top boxes that exist in approximately 30 million households today. Just think about it -- a _insert cable company name here_ cable box is just as mashup-able as Craigslist." (Toeman, 2012, p.1)

II. Television Integrated With Real-Life