TV gives an opportunity to see the best actors, sport matches, to meet famous people. TV brings the world to our room. We see people in our country and in other lands and learn about their customs, occupations, traditions, problems. We become cultured people by learning more of the arts. Television helps us to relax after a hard day's work, so we can then cope better with the next day's work. Besides, there is a considerable amount of TV programmes: News, different talk-shows, TV games, concerts and variety shows, sport programmes, feature films, serials and so on and so forth. They are of great entertainment value and provide useful topics for conversation. A lot of these programmes are very popular. For example, News deals with political and social problems of modern society. Their aim is to give analysis of the problems and show different view points. They are concerned with the country's national events, the most topical political problems of the day. Musical Review presents songs, pop groups, folk songs. It is very popular with TV viewers.

Thus, we can say that TV is a great force which attracts millions of people to the screens.

But tastes differ. Some people are against TV. They say that TV is doing a lot of harm. It occupies a lot of free time. People used to have hobbies, to meet with friends, to go to the cinema or theatre, to read books, to listen to music. Nowadays many people sit watching TV hour by hour. They don't read books, they don't do sports, and they begin to forget the art of conversation. Watching TV for a long time may lead to poor health and ruin eye-sight.

But nobody makes you watch TV for hours. You can simply switch off your TV-set. But nobody can deny the fact, that TV is a great force in the world today.

As far as books and computers are concerned, I can say in my firm confidence that computers will never replace books. First because they fulfill different functions. It's true that both books and computers contain information. But one computer is worth the whole library. So perhaps, computers will replace reference books because it's quicker and easier to find the necessary information in the computer than in reference books.

But I'm sure computers can't be compared to fiction. Historical novels, adventure books, detective stories, science fiction, romance, poems, which we read for pleasure or if they are recommended by teachers create a special atmosphere. They take us into the imaginary world of high human emotions, exciting relations. A computer can help you in reading these books without turning the pages but working on the computer demands certain effort. You are to sit straight, not to stoop; you keep your finger on the keyboard. Besides computers have a harmful impact on the eyesight.

Video Gamers May Have Quicker Eyes

NEW YORK - Video game players may spend a lot of time on the couch, but when they're ready to go out they can find their keys quicker than the rest of us, a study suggests.

Researchers found that gamers who devote much of their free time to Grand Theft Auto and Super Mario may be able to scan their environment and spot the target of their search more quickly than non-gamers can. In experiments with college students who were either hard-core video game players or novices, the researchers found that players were quicker to detect target objects on a busy computer screen than their peers were.

The findings, published in the journal Acta Psychologica, suggest that the vigilant watchfulness video games require makes for quicker visual processing. Gamers' brains don't appear to have any specialized search strategy, they're just faster, explained lead study author Dr. Alan Castel, a post-doctorate fellow in psychology at Washington University in St. Louis.

Specifically, both groups of students were similar when it came to the search principle of "inhibition of return." According to Castel, this means that when people look for their keys, they look in one place, and if the keys aren't there, they will look in a number of other spots before giving the original location a second go-around. In the experiments, he told Reuters Health, video gamers used the same search strategy as non-gamers did. "They just executed it faster," he said.

What this means for real life is uncertain. The advantage video game players held over their peers was on the order of 100 milliseconds, Castel noted. It's possible, though, that a gamer's speedier visual processing could make the difference between, for example, crashing a car and averting an accident, according to Castel.

That doesn't mean, however, that people should take up video games to improve their driving records. That 100-millisecond advantage could take a lot of playing time, Castel said; gamers in his study played 6 days a week, on average, for about 2 hours each day.

Video games have been much criticized for their violent content and for contributing to couch-potato lifestyles. This study, Castel noted, doesn't judge video games as "good" or "bad." It just suggests they feed a very particular expertise. The main research interest, according to Castel, is in whether video games, through effects on visual processing, attention and movement, can be useful in rehabilitating the brain -- after a stroke, for instance, or in cases of age-related memory loss.

Watching Sports vs. Participating in Sports

Nowadays sport and recreation have become an important feature in the people's life. But tastes differ and different people have different attitudes to sport and recreation. Some people prefer to watch different sports events; others choose to participate in them actively. Watching other people playing is a popular leisure activity. Large crowds attend numerous national and international occasions; millions watch them on television.

Among the most popular sports are football, hockey, basketball, tennis, and motor racing. World Football, Hockey and Basketball Championships attract people from all over the world who cover great distances in order to support their favourite team. Wimbledon Championship is the most important tournament of lawn tennis, while Grand Prix is the major motor racing competition. But of cause the most important sports event is the Olympic Games that take place every four years.

Most of the important games are shown on TV. In many countries there are special TV channels that broadcast sports programmes for 24 hours. The major sporting competitions, such as the Olympic Games, are shown on the central TV channels attracting millions of people who can be thousands of kilometres away from the event. Popularity of sports differs from country to country. In Latin America football stadiums are always crowded, while the Russian fans are so disappointed with the poor performance of football teams that many prefer not to watch the games even on TV.

The desire to follow the example of sports stars induces people to take up sports that they used to watch seriously. In the past decades people's involvement in sport and recreation have grown considerably. Now there is a large variety of available opportunities and facilities. Sport is the best and the shortest way to health and fitness. Increasing number of people is involved today in activities that help them keep fit and enjoy life. Physical recreation tends to be informal and non-competitive and may include, for example, cycling, boating, and jogging. Dancing has become a very popular recreation.

Sport and recreation facilities provided at schools and universities enable young athletes to develop their talents. To keep fit some people attend special classes or take part in aerobics or yoga, do some kind of weight training in a gym. Others play football, badminton, tennis. Evidently participating in sports has more advantages than simply watching sports competitions. At the same time these two kinds of activities are tightly interconnected. Professional sport is important not only for the professional athletes, one of its missions is to propagandize and popularize sports activities on the everyday level. At the same time it is always an individual preference. And only the individual has the right to decide what is better for him. But whatever the choice is, the pleasure is undoubted.