"Television viewing is a major activity and influence on children and adolescents. Children in the United States watch an average of three to four hours of television a day. By the time of high school graduation, they will have spent more time watching television than they have in the classroom. While television can entertain, inform, and keep our children company, it may also influence them in undesirable ways." (AACAP, 2001, p. 1)
Even though parents are conscious that the media can affect their children, nearly all of them don't realize how severe it is actually becoming. While television has developed and is now one of our most valuable ways of communication, it also has horrible consequences of being able to negatively affect and corrupt people. This will examine both sides of this problem, focusing on the effects of a particular mass medium, television, on a particular group of society, children. It will also examine studies that try to show both the positive and negative affects on children.
This website will also illustrate the necessity of parents to be there for their children and for teachers to play a pivotal role in helping children separate fact from fiction during television viewing.
Television is by far the most popular and most powerful medium in which children are exposed. It probably could be argued that television is more influential than parents are to children, however all television does not have to have negative effects on children. Many programs do have positive themes behind them. A study by Aletha C. Huston and John C. Wright (1998) examined the studies portrayed television as having negative effects on children, and proved that most of these studies are faulty. One study that is often brought ...
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...gers. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 11(1), 28-39.
Huston, A.C. (1998). Television and the Informational and Educational Needs of Children. Annals of the American Academy of Political & Social Science, 557, 9-23.
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Nathanson, A.I. (1999). Identifying and Explaining the Relationship between Parental Mediation and Children's Aggression. Communication Research, 26(2), 124-143.
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Zuckerman, M.B. (1996, August). The Victims of TV Violence. U.S. News & World Report, 64.
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Moody, Kate. Growing up on Television: the TV Effect: a Report to Parents. New York, NY: Times, 1980. Print.
Children in their adolescents years watch a great amount of TV each week and it is almost inevitable that they will start to be influenced by what they see on their television. They will see diffe...
In many cases it can lead to less quality time for the family, a minimized educational value for children, and the promotion of sex and violence, which has become more prominent in today’s programs. The television has greatly impacted and altered: former means of communication within the family, leisure time activities, and child development.
Victor .C, Wilson J, Jordan. A. Children, Adolescents, and the Media. (2009)second ed. California: SAGE publication,. 12-193. Pediatrics, , 958-961. Retrieved April 12, 2014.
Television has become a big part in children’s day-to-day lives especially in the 20th century. Children in this century rely on television to keep them entertained and educated instead of entertaining and educating themselves by participating in activities, which will teach them a lot more in life then the actual television. There is no doubt that children are most easily influenced by television because of the different content that they watch as well as the amount of time consumed watching TV. The television does have an emotional and intellectual development on children but this all depends on the content that they’re watching and the way that they absorb the information that the show is trying to send out. Different programs will portray
Consistently, everywhere, in this century there seems to be some form of a TV screen. These screens appear in restaurants, schools, at work, at home, and quite possibly more. What is forgotten in society is how that screen may affect the lives of the children in this modern world. When children are constantly watching a television screen there may be consequences to their health and education. Most parents do not have the ability to control what is shown on TV. Many programs disagreeably display marathons after school and during holidays. Supposedly, adult shows are only showed late at night, but with movies becoming more and more explicit, even bed time can’t stop the most determined child. Children’s problems in education and health are a direct result of the amount of TV watched.
Dowshen, Steven. (October 2011). “How T.V. Affects Your Child.” Kidshealth.org. Retrieved March 18th,2014, from http://kidshealth.org/parent/positive/family/tv_affects_child.html
Although most of our media appears to be superficial and meaningless fluff, violence and chit chat, it is also a source of education, humor and non-violent entertainment. Both salesmen and individuals wishing to promote various things have at some point made use of the different forms of the media. They have used the media to promote what people should wear, eat, do and even value. The media informs us what is occurring around the world and how to react to the events shown. The affects of media will vary with a child’s age and stage of development. (Barbour, Barbour & Scully, 2008)
It may be hard to admit, but television has become an intricate part of our everyday lives. People children often find themselves sitting in front of the television screen for a longer period of time than before and this has evolved immensely over the past few years. In this article, “The Trouble with Television,” by the author Marie Winn, mentions that addiction of television is negative effects on children and families. It keeps the families from doing other things and it’s a hidden competitor for all other activities. Television takes place of play and on top of that kids who watch a lot of television grow uncivilized. Also, the author mentioned that televisions are less resourceful for children and have negative effects on children’s school achievement and on physical fitness. Although there are so many other types of addictions but the author Marie Winn’s points of argument of watching television is a serious addiction that our children and families have negative effects.
Television has been in American Society since 1920’s and has gradually been spreading around the world. Television is like a drug in American Society, it is addictive to all ages including children. It has the most effect on children that are young and do not know anything about television. As children grow older they focus more in watching shows and playing video games for many hours.“Kids and teens 8 to 18 years spend nearly 4 hours a day in front of a TV screen and almost 2 additional hours on the computer (outside of schoolwork) and playing video games.” (How) This is bad for children because if they spend almost 6 hours just in mass media. Then the question of how much time will they spend in doing task that might benefit their body and their physical aspect of life.
The pros of television for children’s development are that it helps children’s cognitive development, it helps children to explore new things such as animals and places, and lastly it helps children’s behavior. However, there are also disadvantages of television for children. These disadvantages are that children become sedentary, become less involved with real life activities, and finally children become uncreative. However, people need to understand that the ones responsible for making appropriate use of television for children are the parents. Parents should always take in account if the television programs that are in the television are appropriate for children or not. They need to understand that television can be a great advantage to children’s development if the hours are limited for the children, but it can also be a great disadvantage for children if the hours are not limited. They have the responsibility to balance every aspect of children’s lives. Television is not the only way in which children can learn new things but it is of great
Children can be influenced and impacted in many ways whether it is from their parents, peers, and even strangers. One thing many people don’t realize is that many children, nowadays, are actually being influenced by the media, meaning they are being affected by different media sources, such as television and the internet. The question is whether the sources of media, television and the internet has a positive effect or a negative effect on children, and which source of media has a bigger effect.
There are many facts that show how children are affected by television. The most obvious is the effects that television has on the brain. 'Television interferes with the development of intelligence, thinking skill and imagination.';(LimiTv) A huge element of thinking is taking from what you already know and deciding how it applies in different situation. School makes you do this, but television does not. Michael and Sheila Cole, sociologist, say that 'Children socialized to learn from television had lower than normal expectations about the amount of mental effort required to learn from written texts, and tended to read less and perform relatively poorly in school.';(Development of Children 24) Which means that it takes very little effort to follow a television show and kids are raised on television believe that it takes less effort to learn from television rather than books because they have been 'spoon-fed'; information by television. 'Opportunities for a child's imagination to develop are also denied by habitual viewing.'; (Neural Activity and the Growth of the Brain) Children need some unstructured time to allow imagination skills to form by thinking about a book or story, a conversation, or an event.
Palmer, Edward L. Children in the Cradle of Television. United States of America: D.C. Health, 1987.