help with revision on assignment

Hello,
I'm just finisihing up an assignment here. Its on the poem "The Screen" by Terrence Chisuano. I could really use some help revising my response and any suggestions improving it if you could thankyou..here is the poem...



The Screen
I think TVs really do somthing
to people.

I've been on a thousand flights before, when
the stewardesses get up to the show
the passengers how to save
their lives
(and then the people just look out the
windows, maybe at the engines or the sky, or at their

hands)

I was on a flight once when all that
stuff was prerecorded, put down on VHS
(The woman on the monitor was so
happy, helpful, and full of smiles)

Every eye in that cabin was glue to
the screen. They all watched the whole thing


I think the
airlines know: The screen is magic

Write a personal response to "The Screen". In your response, consider
- the idea the poem expresses about the power of television on the airline passengers.
-the word choices of the poet

- the extent to which you agree or disagree with the ideas presented in the poem.

- your personal experiences with television and flying, connecting them to the ideas in the poem.

- the strenght and effectiveness of your writer's voice.

Here is what i have so far:


In the modern world that we currently live in, it’s very difficult to find a person on the street or anywhere for that matter who doesn’t know the word television or its associated shortened term TV. It’s become an epidemic, at least in more well off countries of the world. In 1998, a study by the A.C. Nielsen Co. showed the average American watches 3 hours and 46 minutes of television each day. That works out to 52 days of non-stop television watching per year. By the age of 65, the average American will have spent 9 years of their lives sitting behind the screen. Along with this a shocking 98 percent of homes in America have at least one television in the confines of their home.
In Terrence Chiusano’s “The Screen” he is pointing out the impact that the tube has own our society. The airline passengers are so acclimatized to watching television that they now prefer to receive information through the mode of television rather than having actual interaction with the stewardesses. In this age of instantaneous messages via the television people are so used to receiving important information that they do not pat attention if given through in another way. This is the message Chiusano is clearly trying to convey.

The passengers aboard the plane did not respond to the face to face interaction with the stewardess even when she was giving life saving instruction should the plane experience difficulties, while when the same message was pre recorded on VHS and played on the screen the passengers responded positively. This generation raised on Sesame Street with high energy, colourful, happy puppets produced individuals whose attention is not caught unless the information is ‘commercialized’ into techno color, high tech productions.

The language the poet used was simple to emphasize his message. He did not need gimmicks to convey his point…face to face interactions is losing the battle to passive discourse through the television. People are losing the ability to stay focused unless special effects emphasize the message.

I agree that personal interactions are becoming a lost art and unless the message is given in very short snippets the vast majority of people simply tune it out. Just look around a classroom when the instructor is lecturing in a monotone voice the students are looking out the windows, talking to other students or maybe even sleeping. More and more schools are introducing videos during class on the same topics that would have usually been taught by a teacher. Live theatre is on the brink of extinction with the arrival of the silver screen and the large glamorous movie theatres they’re enclosed in. Banking has never been easier and faster since introducing methods of monitoring accounts and bill payments online.

In my experience with flying, I have encountered both the traditional stewardess standing at the front of the plane explaining the pamphlet everyone receives on proper procedures in certain situations, as well as the pre-recorded television version. As the poet described, there is no question the television method attracts more viewers. It seems almost as though the passengers feel like their being nagged or being told what to do. The disinterest is evident as passengers are looking out the window, searching in their bags for their portable music player, or whatever else. Contrasting this, with the screen it almost seems like the passengers are being entertained in someway. The eyes focus on the television and by the end of the tape everyone would be able to tell you how to use the falling oxygen masks.
In addition to this phenomenon I also always find it a little humorous to see passengers in the middle of a flight, playing tic tact toe against each other, conversating, walking back and forth to different seats, and whatever else, but once that on flight movie starts everyone’s in their seats with a silence that you can hear every movement the guy three seats in front of you makes.

In the modern and technological world that we live in, we have become like flies attracted to a bright light, it seems that when it comes to face to face contact, the majority of people are just not as interested as with a screen in front of them.



Thankyou all for your time and help in advance,
Shane Shanks