Pete Hamil talks about how TV and drugs are related

Essay by ktu818College, UndergraduateA+, November 2002

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Pete Hamil in "Crack and the Box" argues that looking at television for long periods of time has made million of Americans vulnerable to becoming addicted to drugs. Through his writings he provides many accounts to support his thesis. Whether they be his own experiences when he was a reporter or the static's on the amounts of crime, and drug possession. Even though he brings up many good points that support his thesis, I don't agree with Hamil on similarities between television and drug addicts. I believe that there is no correlation between the people who watch television for long periods of time and people who do drugs.

Pete Hamil developed his thesis by one day talking to a woman who was addicted to cocaine, while she was smoking cocaine her children would be watching television. When he compared this to the many other situations he observed as a reporter, he noticed that they all the same common trait, television.

He supported his thesis, by introducing the amount of televisions sold in a particular year compared to the estimates on the present and a similar rise in the drug plague.

He states that television with a touch of a button takes the viewer out of the real and puts then in the television show or what they are watching. It also doesn't take a lot of using your brain decode what they are saying, it can also change your mood depending on the mood of the show. However, reading is not the same experience as watching television because the readers have to think about the words while they read them. Hamil argues that television diminishes brain cells and so does drugs, the diminished capacity makes it easier for drugs to seem good. "In short, television works on the same...