For Senior Jonathan Goldstein, Monday nights from 9-10 p.m. are off limits for everything except FOX’s hit drama, “24.”

“My friends know not to call me during that hour,” he said. “It’s not that I’m anti-social about it, I’ll watch it with other people. I just want to be fully focused on what’s happening.”

As most people familiar with the show already know, Goldstein is hardly alone. Since its debut in 2001, “24” has become one of the most popular and compelling shows on television. Its debut this season garnered 33 million viewers and the DVD sales of its past seasons are one of the highest of any serial. Even at Stanford, where many people yearn for the days when watching plenty of TV was easy, students readily rearrange their schedules to make time for “24.”

“I have multiple friends trying to cram seasons of the show into a matter of weeks to catch up for the new season,” Goldstein said.

Each season of “24” focuses on one day in the life of counter-terrorism agent Jack Bauer, with each episode showing a one-hour real-time segment of that day. Much of the popularity is generated from the fast-paced action and constant sense of anticipation, as Bauer has to race, puzzle-solve and, more than anything else, fight his way to the end of the day — which usually results in saving the United States from a terrorist inflicted disaster.

Yet despite the show’s enormous entertainment value — and we admit that it is addictive — whether you are a devoted longtime fan, or just getting into the series, it is important to pause and consider how the show may influence the way audiences think about current events.

On the positive side, the show constantly raises issues like civil liberties and national security, and portrays political debates with obvious allusions to real politicians. These plot points bring important issues to the attention of viewers who may not regularly follow current events, making fans of “24” more likely to show interest when similar issues appear in the news.

But at the same time, there is the possibility that “24” could replace news altogether for some viewers, and the over-dramatized events it presents to keep the adrenaline flowing could pervert the public’s sense of reality by creating a constant sense or paranoia that is good for ratings, but not necessarily for the general interest.

The pervasiveness of torture in many of the seasons distracts from the seriousness of the matter. Bauer often has to extricate information from terrorists by painful means that would probably fit any textbook definition of illegal interrogation. But because Bauer is the good guy and has to work fast to save the day, it often becomes too easy to ignore any moral implications of his actions, and accept the idea that everything he does is for the greater good.

Furthermore, the constant portrayal of Muslim terrorists as the source of threat opportunistically plays off the public’s fears and perpetuates existing stereotypes that all Arabs and Muslims are terrorists.

Though most Stanford students are able to separate the entertainment value of the series from its factual content, not taking many of the over-the-top plot twists as credible depictions of the current political atmosphere, next time you watch “24,” it is worth considering exactly how these elements play into the excitement. We are confidant that our peers can make the distinction between a fictional show and real life, and we hope the rest of the 33 million viewers will be equally discerning.