Televisions, sometimes abbreviated as TV, or tele, refer to the mode of telecommunication by the transmission of moving images and sound. Images can be transmitted in either black-and-white, colour or in three dimensional visuals. The term 'television' can either refer to the mode of transmission, a program aired on television, or the even the physical device itself through which the televised content is seen.

The term 'television', comes from Ancient Greek, tele meaning 'far', and Latin, visio meaning 'sight'.

The invention of the television became commonplace and quite popularised in the mid twentieth century as a form of entertainment seeking. Earlier before, televisions only broadcasted silent, grainy black and white images. With the advent of time and the fast pace of technology, eventually the quality of images received improvement, sound started accompanying the images, and the visuals acquired colour.

In the 2000s, the bulky cathode ray televisions sets began to get replaced by sleek, slimmer and flatter television sets with plasma, LCD and OLED displays.

Smart television is the convergence of computers and television sets, also sometimes referred to as hybrid tv. With the advent of smart television, instead of watching serials and movies in accordance with the cable network schedules, users can now stream them online, on demand from services as such as Netflix and Hulu.

The sight of a television set is quite common in the twenty first century. Drama serials, news, movies, cartoons and reality based shows, all air on televisions. Each country has its own television network, one that is state controlled.

Television has steadily grown to be a major agent in the 20th and the 21st century, highly involved in socialisation. While televisions also make content instantly available over a wide geographical area, which contributes to instant news, there are some negative aspects of it as well. The growth of television and its foray into entertainment has also given rise to 'couch potatoes', in which individuals lie in front of the television all day, choosing to engage in simulation based entertainment than exercising their minds and bodies. Recent research is also showing that people over indulge in the facility of television in order to deflect sensations of social deprivation and self-isolation.