There are shows I enjoy watching on NBC (The West Wing, Ed, Law & Order), but I hate watching show preview commercials about Fear Factor. There is always something gross shown, transferring animal brains by mouth from one container into another, being covered with or having to eat meal worms, etc. Someone has evidently concluded that this is entertainment.

My question is this: Is it healthy for Americans, especially children, to constantly watch people do anything for money?

I think it's bad for Americans, especially children, to sit watching TV. Read a book, play a sport, have a conversation with someone, go out to a lake a fish, whatever.

Just turn the TV off.

It is extremely un-healthy and what's more, it's un-productive.

Like AMF mentioned, children (and adults) should be playing sports and
partaking in activities that bring them closer to family and friends.
We should be exercising our minds in positive ways, through reading
and using our own imaginations.

TV is bad enough. When it becomes dare-devil activites for cash,
it's reaching new lows. It is sending a message that money is so
important, we should stoop to any level to obtain it.

I agree, maybe because I find these shows are nothing but glorified game shows and just updated versions of that show off of Nickelodeon from the mid to late 80's. If you even think about it, the majority of the people that go on that show are in that age group that watched Nickelodeon back in the day. I think it's unintelligent, repeditive, predictive and boring. Unless you're under 24 and being either a typical highschooler, college freshmen, or an American SHEEP, these shows shouldn't appeal to you!

And you know what the sad thing is, my girlfriend, the college english grad, writer- poet, LOVES reality tv.

I am in complete agreement with everyone.

The American public is hypnotizable when it comes to TV. Watching TV is the most boring,uninteresting hobby available. Why do most Americans seem to be involved in this hobby. It is pretty simple.

Watching TV requires the least amount of intellect or thinking than any other hobby. There was a study years ago that proved that in watching TV, there was almost no brain activity.

Americans these days aren't interested in getting to the truth of most things. There are so many beautiful and wonderful things in this world to see,but there is little interest except TV.

Tv has robbed lots of young childrens lives. Instead of making friends, seeing nature,reading a book,exercising,using their imagination, they are in front of a TV.

That is my vent for today.

Is it healthy for Americans, especially children, to constantly watch people do anything for money?

I agree that it is unproductive, but I wouldn't go so far as to declare it unhealthy. Television shouldn't be the supreme educator of our society and the shows presented shouldn't alone mold the minds of our youth. So long as parents are there to put shows in context, regardless of their content, I can't conceive of a television show being unhealthy. For those children who are allowed to be raised by television, the blame seems to me to rest more with parental neglect than with television content.

Choosing television over more productive activities is a personal choice and neither the television or the shows produced should be held accountable if we are to demonstrate any responsibility or self control.

Literature is my passion, but I have to say, the same charges levelled at the television are the same levelled at the novel - especially the penny dreadful - long ago. If he wants, a person can find far greater perversions in writing than on friendly public television. Take it from someone who read Georges Bataille's cult classic, The Story of the Eye, not because it was good, but because it was there.

Well, I never watch the really bad ones, though I have tuned into about probably 5 episodes total of reality shows. I did like the comic competition. I can't stand American Idol, Survivor, Fear Factor, though my big fat obnoxious fiance'- which is pretty much an "anything for money" show- can be freakin' hilarious. Also I watched one whole episode of "Simple life".

I think they really are a sign of the decline of our intellect in our country. Yes, I think it is a pretty unhealthy trend. But instead of blaming the media, it is squarely the blame of the viewers, no one else.

You know though, the concept of kid's just sitting in front of the TV all day doesn't ring true either. Volleyball, soccer, piano lessons, school, homework, football or basketball practise- man, are we still getting that much TV time?

On the one hand, I wanted to say "Yeah right - as if the rest of society doesn't ram home the message that money is so important with every advertisement, every government tax cut, every waking breath of the capitalist giant we all depend on".

But then I thought about it a little more, and I think that isn't quite the message it's sending out. Reality-TV-for-money (the Big Brother, Survivor, Fear Factor type, rather than just fly-on-the-wall documentaries) send out the message that ordinary people can get lots of money, and fame/celebrity (which seems to me to be more important than money to increasing numbers of people) for doing next to nothing.

Eat some bugs on TV, sit in a house for ten weeks doing nothing on TV, sit in a jungle clearing doing nothing on TV, and you can get national fame and millions of dollars.

We're seeing a whole generation that believes it will just get lucky, so there's no point staying out of debt, working hard, saving for retirement, buying a home, etc. because someday they'll magically be rich and famous and it won't matter. What was an idle daydream has become a seriously considered career option (just watch the opening rounds of American Idol and see the acres of fools who believe lust for fame is more important than talent or application. Or Geri Haliwell, for that matter.)

A reality TV show that lasted 20 years and showed a group of people working hard at their chosen career to get rich and/or successful, and I would have some respect for the format. It would get no ratings, though.