Ielts reading recent actual tests (2016 2017) with answers published by ieltsmaterial com

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have shown that heavy viewers are less likely to participate in community activities and 
sports and are more likely to be obese than moderate viewers or non-viewers. 
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More than 25 years ago psychologist Tannis M. MacBeth Williams of the University of 
British Columbia studied a mountain community that had no television until cable finally 
arrived. Over time, both adults and children in the town became less creative in problem 
solving, less able to persevere at tasks, and less tolerant of unstructured time. 
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Nearly 40 years ago Gary A. Steiner of the University of Chicago collected fascinating 
individual accounts of families whose set had broken. In experiments, families have 
volunteered or been paid to stop viewing, typically for a week or a month. Some fought, 
verbally and physically. In a review of these cold-turkey studies, Charles Winick of the 
City University of New York concluded: 'The first three or four days for most persons were 
the worst, even in many homes where viewing was minimal and where there were other 
ongoing activities. In over half of all the households, during these first few days of loss, 
the regular routines were disrupted, family members had difficulties in dealing with the 
newly available time, anxiety and aggressions were expressed By the second week, a 
move toward adaptation to the situation was common.' Unfortunately, researchers have 
yet to flesh out these anecdotes; no one has systematically gathered statistics on the 
prevalence of these withdrawal symptoms. 
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Even though TV does seem to meet the criteria for substance dependence, not all 
researchers would go so far as to call TV addictive. Mcllwraith said in 1998 that 
'displacement of other activities by television may be socially significant but still fall short 
of the clinical requirement of significant impairment.' He argued that a new category of 
'TV addiction' may not be necessary if heavy viewing stems from conditions such as 
depression and social phobia. Nevertheless, whether or not we formally diagnose 
someone as TV-dependent, millions of people sense that they cannot readily control the 
amount of television they watch. 

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