How Television Viewing Affects Children (Rough Draft)
The Department of Education states that television is viewed an average of three to five hours per day by children. Too much television can have an everlasting affects on children, such as violent behavior, aggressive behavior, poor school performance, obesity, early sexual activities, and early drug and alcohol use. Television can affect children both physical and psychological (qtd. in Graham 1). Some argue that television does not affect children; it can be very educational
Christakis and Zimmerman of the Department of Pediatrics suggest that children age two to four years old are subjected to the risk of antisocial behavior by age seven to nine for boys but not for girls from watching excessive television , and that violent seen on television can cause aggressiveness in real life. By selecting other programs with less violent can promote prosocial behaviors in preschoolers.
Children need to be involved in activities that will motivate their brains. Such as things that will give them an opportunity to explore, move, manipulate, smell, touch, and learn. Sitting and viewing television everyday for hours without exercise can cause obesity, because most of the times the children are eating junk food while watching TV. Small children are not able to interpret what they see and the way they learn from what they see. If they see their favorite cartoon character committing violent they feel that it is okay to solve problems this way (31-33).
Dr. Jeanne Beckman, a licensed clinical psychologist gives statistics that every parent should have knowledge of. She suggest that by the time a child reach the age of twelve, he/she will have viewed over 8,000 murders on TV. She predict...
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...a tendency to be sleepy in class, rude to peers, do not participate in class discussion, and never bring in homework. And the students that watch violence on TV display it with their classmates (Melvin Peoples, Personal Interview. 19 Nov. 2009).
Even though there is extensive research on the effect of excessive television viewing by children; there still is not enough physical evidence to support the argument. Television can be seen as positive and negative tools for the development of children at an early age. What a child learns at an early age depends on the parent’s ability to maintain and monitor what the children see and hear from their surroundings. Just because children watch violent movies of films does not mean that this will determine their outcome in life.
Works Cited
During the first two years of an infant’s life, their sensorimotor attributes are significant in cognitive developments (Berk, 2011). While still adapting to the world itself, the exposure of television might be too difficult for babies to digest all at once as each scene goes from five to eight seconds (Pantley, 2004). Ironically, it was noted that in the United States, approximately 74 percent of children under the age of twenty four months watch television (Rideout, Vandewater, & Wartella, 2003). Many of the learning programs available to the youth, such as Sesame Street and Blue’s Clues are intended for children between the ages of two and six, coincidentally the same age frame of the preoperational stage of Piaget’s stages of cognitive development. This stage emphasizes the use of symbols to represent their earlier sensorimotor skills, which is why nonverbal communication is critical and consistently used in these learning television programs (Berk, 2011).
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.
From its inception, television’s effect has grabbed the attention of many investigators following the question of its unbecoming consequences in its programming and the results affecting influence on aggression. The subject’s sole purpose is the focus on its effect to teach pro-social behaviors and attitudes.
In “Television Harms Children”, Ann Vorisek White claims that the intellectual and cognitive development of children who frequently watch television is threatened. To support this claim, she points to the findings that “the more television children watch, the weaker their language skills and imaginations” (White, 2006). Before the brain fully matures around age 12, it is in the stage of rapid development. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) “recommends that children under the age of two not watch TV or videos, and that older children watch only one to two hours per day of nonviolent, educational TV” (White, 2006). A study from the AAP (as cited in White, 2006) found that the average American child watches four hours of television every day. Considering "expression and reasoning are not automatic" abilities, young children who routinely watch television eventually become "passive and nonverbal" to stimuli in their environment (White, 2006). Since the normality of curiosity and imaginations of young children are the foundation of how they learn, remaining passive for extended periods of time affects their intellectual and moral development.
In 1989 the results of a five year study by the American Psychological Association indicated that the average child has witnessed 8,000 murders and 100,000 other acts of violence on television by the time he or she has completed sixth grade. In further studies it was determined that by the time that same child graduates from high school he or she will have spent 22,000 hours w...
The Effects of Children Having TV's In Their Bedrooms Ideas: They won’t work – isolation – stay up late –watch the wrong films – violence – antisocial – obesity – they risk dangerous - strain eyes – they get ideas off nasty programs – it is noisy – especially at night – they may see nothing else in life. T.V. Kills!!! …Relationships. And you thought there was little harm in buying them that little 14” screen last Christmas. Of course they’d start watching it now and again, perhaps watching some violent action thriller, ghastly murderous films, every night.
Studies reveal that children watch approximately twenty-eight hours of television a week, more time than they spend in school. The typical American child will view more than 200,000 acts of violence, including more than 16,000 murders before age 18. Television programs display 812 violent acts
Without a doubt, television is the central and principal form of communication in many people’s lives. This form is most often exposed to a child who instantly becomes accustomed to its presence. Children are televisions largest audience, as Morris shows, “Children aged two to five look at the TV tube on an average of 28.4 hours a week; those between the ages of six and eleven average 23.6 hours a week”. Television has played an important role in many children’s lives and its viewing has been a favorite activity for many of them. The effects of television on children have been disputed. Some people have said that viewing time has a negative impact on children. Other people, however, feel that the early educational television productions for children help tehm learn.
The psychological effect of children's television is much harder to study because it is not something that can physically be seen, however, there is a study that was conducted to determine the effects of media on children, paying specific attention to the theory of mind (ToM). The theory of mind is “the understanding of the mental states of others.” Children start to develop this at age four and use it to help gain relationships and social skills. Along with completing ToM assessments, this study had parents and preschoolers provided information about how much background television/regular television they were exposed to. 107 preschoolers were tested and the results showed that children who scored poorly on their ToM assessments were exposed to more
According to experts, children who watch too much TV tend to be less interested in physical activity, often develop verbal skills more slowly and tend to be less confident in social situations.
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.
As early as 1958 investigations were being conducted of the effects of television on children. During this time, the researchers found that most of the television content was extremely violent. In almost half of the television hours monitored, the programs main focus contained violence. The common theme that was seen throughout the programs were crime, shooting, fighting, and murder. The universal definition of violence used was, "Any overt depiction of the use of physical force, or the credible threat of such force, to intend to physically harm an animated being or group of beings." In this investigation, Wilbur Schramm concluded that under some conditions, some violent television could effect some children. For the most part, most television is neither helpful or harmful to most kids under most circumstances. As you can see this conclusion is quiet vague, and does not give a lot of crucial information for us to correct and improve. Schramm and his colleagues came up with a solution for parents to provide a warm, loving, secure family environment for their children, and they would have little to worry about.
How TV Affects your Child? Kids Health. October 2011. Web. The Web.
Furthermore, television violence causes aggressive behavior in children. Many people believe that children who watch violent television programs exhibit more aggressive behavior than that exhibited by children who do not (Kinnear 23). According to the results of many studies and reports, violence on television can lead to aggressive behavior in children (Langone 50). Also, when television was introduced into a community of children for the first time, researchers observed a rise in the level of physical and verbal aggression among these children (Langone 51). The more television violence viewed by a child, the more aggressive the child is (“Children” 1).
To many children, TV can be appealing because they find the colorful cartoons interesting and instantly catches their attention. But, as entertaining and fun Television can be, spending too much time looking at your big fifty inch flat screen TV can eventually impact your life. It seems like if you just spend all your time sitting on the couch, you may find yourself preparing fast meals, such as a ham sandwich thrown with some potato chips on a plate or just driving to buying something from McDonald’s. But this can eventually affect your health. If we give Television too much attention it can also affect relationships with parents, siblings or a partner. It can slowly become an easy addiction to come home to, sit on the couch and spend the rest of the day watching all the shows we like. Lastly, too much Television can affect our mood which can lead to certain thinking and