In some situations, however, television has surely contributed to a decrease in communication
among family members. In my childhood in the countryside, I often saw parents and children
watching television for hours on end, rarely speaking with one another. It seemed for them that
television was a way to escape from their sad, miserable existence. However, even in this case, I
would say that television merely contributed to the bad situation, but did not cause it; were
television not existent, surely these people would have found other escapes, alcohol or gambling,
for example. In other words, people always find a way to do what they want to do.