Is Today's Culture Ruining Childhood?

1267 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Negative effect of Technology on Children

Modern Mayhem “The fact is that modern life has deprived us of life's one great luxury: time” (Colwin). Childhood is a sacred time to every individual because it is the root of who the person is, even as an adult. That is why it is crucial to spend one’s childhood doing activities that will be remembered. This has been difficult for the youth today because of the way culture has evolved. Although modern culture could provide children with more opportunities, it is ruining childhood because of the effects that technology, food choices, and the media have on youth. Kites, forts, playgrounds, and other imaginative activities were many apparatuses of childhood for previous generations. These concepts are very unusual to see in today’s culture.
Rather, technology has become the norm for individuals of all ages. This is because due to the advancements in technology, it has …show more content…

Rather than doing physically reliant activities, youth spend most of their time looking at a screen. “A 2010 Kaiser Foundation study showed that elementary aged children use on average 7.5 hours per day on entertainment technology…” (Rowan). This not only causes children to lack the physical activity they need, but the social activity as well. Technology can cause social isolation in children. Although social media keeps individuals updated, it keeps them more “distant” and “lonely” in their phoneless lives (Price). Technology also limits the need for imagination to create entertainment, because staring at a television requires no thinking at all. "The advent of television altered that attention by offering children visual stimuli, fragmented attention, and little need for imagination" (Taylor). This affects most children because many have their own TV. "A 2010 Kaiser Foundation study showed that 75% of… children have TV's in their own rooms, and 50 percent of North American homes have the TV on all day"

Show More
Related

  • Screen Time- Devil in Disguise or Misunderstood?

    1659 Words  | 4 Pages

    Television is a distraction for children and can hurt their cognitive abilities if they watch too much because it is non interactive. In the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity Helena Duch and colleagues mentioned that the American Academy of Pediatrics advises, “parents avoid exposing children 2 and under to screen media, a nationally representative survey found that 68% of children under the age of 2 use screen media in a typical day, and that average screen time was 2.05 hours per day” (Dutch et al 2). Children live in a world full of screens, ranging from iPhones, TVs, to tablets and computers. Drastic brain development occurs during the ages of 1-3 and exposing them to too much screen time of any kind can have negative effects on them (Hopkins 27). Putting them in front of a screen also steals away from times they could be talking, playing, and interacting with their surroundings. Pediatrician Dr. Michael Rich claims that shows d...

    Read More

  • Entertainment Ruining Society

    531 Words  | 2 Pages

    According to ABC, 97% of adolescents play games and the majority of them are violent. With all the sexual violence games out there-modern warfare-, they are affecting young children's minds. Which leads to future complications in their adult life. For example, they can have an anger problem or they gain a fascination to guns and that leads to school shooting because of the anger issue.

    Read More

  • Brent Staples Analysis

    1560 Words  | 4 Pages

    Staple’s study indicates that adolescents are in isolation when socializing via internet. Socializing through social media comes with a cost, such as lack of physical interactions with friends and loved ones. The author finds communicating with technology can effect a family and other relationships. The lack of adolescent’s social skills starts with the inability to experience person-to-person conversations. Person-to-person conversations give children the ability to hear, and see, contrasting socializing via internet.

    Read More

  • Screen Time in America

    1163 Words  | 3 Pages

    Television, or screen time, has become a large part of today's society. Whether it's by way of smart-phones, a television, a computer, or a tablet, screen time has negative effects on the cognitive ability of children and adolescents. It has even been proven that it can lead to Alzheimer's disease when a person, in the age range of 20-60 years old, views an hour more than the recommended amount of screen time a day (Sigman 14). In children, the amount of screen time viewed has a relationship with the likelihood of developing a deficit in his attention span; the longer a child views screen time, the more likely he is to be diagnosed with an attention disorder. Screen time, or television, can cause attention disorders and other problem with cognitive abilities in children and adolescents that effect the education they can comprehend.

    Read More

  • Article Application: Television Harms Children by Ann Viorisek White

    606 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Interactive Society and Instant Gratification

    695 Words  | 2 Pages

    The ability for people to surround themselves with the familiarity of their comfort place by using their technology is appealing because it rarely provides the user with something unexpected or unfamiliar. By constantly being cut off from personal interactions and new experiences because of a technological device. A generation with substandard social abilities is being groomed. If we do not have to face reality by experiencing new things, making personal relationships, and problem solving, then we will never be able to function as Humans. Technology hinders personal communication, which negatively impacts our lives. Although “our culture heralds the Internet as a technological wonder, there are suggestions that Internet use has a negative influence on individuals and their social skills,” (article 1) Data shows that those who use the Internet frequently spend over 100 minutes less time with...

    Read More

  • Technology Is Ruining Society

    785 Words  | 2 Pages

    Various electronics are frequently used to go on pointless websites, such as Twitter and Facebook, which ruin society’s social abilities. More and more people use social media on the internet as a communication source. This does not apply merely to kids and teens, but adults as well. Using these sorts of websites as a way of communicating causes many individuals’ social skills to decrease. A plethora of children and teens would rather stay inside and interact with their friends through the internet than go hang out with them. Before technology people were not afraid to go up to a random person and talk to them. Now many friendships form through the internet and these friendships are not genuine. When these “friends” meet in person, they find nothing to talk about. For example, I remember after watching Perks of being a Wallflower, a movie taking place in the early nineties, my friends and I discussed how all the characters communicated in person and during hanging out they played games and talked. Now...

    Read More

  • Technology in the Movie Wall-E

    915 Words  | 2 Pages

    A study done by Stanford said that when children spend more time with their technology instead of using that time for face-to-face communication, their social skills might decrease. A professor from Stanford University, Clifford Nas...

    Read More

  • Is Modern Culture Ruining Childhood?

    955 Words  | 2 Pages

    Is Modern Culture Ruining Childhood? Modernity is one of the most important periods in the human intellectual history. Philosophers and historians claim that it started somewhere in the middle of the 19th century. Modernity is based on the project of “modernization” (rationalization and scientification of the world in order to make it a better place to live). This project was born in the middle of the Western civilization and it was considered that it is heading the only direction towards the progress.

    Read More

  • The Effects of Television on Child Development

    2026 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Children and Technology: Growing Up in the Modern World Can Have Negative Effects on Children

    998 Words  | 2 Pages

    Children growing up in today’s modern technological society are not as active as the children were before the invention of all the new new devices we have todaygadgets . Children growing up under the Amish and/or Mennonite cultures and beliefs are also more active than the children growing up in the modern society are. The bedroom used to be primarily the place to sleep. Today the bedroom has replaced the outdoors as the children’s play area. The bedrooms of today’s modern children are equipped with televisions, game consoles, computers, and miscellaneous electronic toys that entertain them for hours. Children are missing the experiences and values that the outdoors has to offer. “The digital bedroom culture is growing all the time at the expense of the outdoors,” the University of Kent’s Frank Furedi said. “Doing physically challenging outdoor activities teaches children how to deal with risk - and they learn about their own strengths and weaknesses.”(Par. 6 Clarke)

    Read More

  • The Negative Impact Of Technology On Children

    813 Words  | 2 Pages

    As disclosed in the article, The Impact of Technology on the Developing Child, Chris Rowan acknowledges, “Rather than hugging, playing, rough housing, and conversing with children, parents are increasingly resorting to providing their children with more TV, video games, and the latest iPads and cell phone devices, creating a deep and irreversible chasm between parent and child” (par. 7). In the parent’s perspective, technology has become a substitute for a babysitter and is becoming more convenient little by little. It is necessary for a growing child to have multiple hours of play and exposure to the outside world each day. However, the number of kids who would rather spend their days inside watching tv, playing video games, or texting is drastically increasing. Children are not necessarily the ones to be blamed for their lack of interest in the world around them, but their parents for allowing their sons and daughters to indulge in their relationship with technology so powerfully. Kids today consider technology a necessity to life, because their parents opted for an easier way to keep their children entertained. Thus resulting in the younger generations believing that technology is a stipulation rather than a

    Read More

  • The Effect of Technology on Children

    1973 Words  | 4 Pages

    Almost every child between the ages of eight and twelve are getting cell phones. The average home in America has as many televisions as they do people. Only 20% of American homes do not have a computer. Technology is quickly becoming a new way of life. The amount of time people are on their devices is growing rapidly. According to The Huffington Post, people are on their devices for on average about eleven hours and fifty-two minutes a day. That is almost half a day and a lot longer than most people sleep or work. People have not realized yet how they or their families are being affected by this constant use of technology. As a result of technology increasing, children are experiencing health problems, school issues, and social problems.

    Read More

  • How Has Childhood Changed Culture Essay

    1719 Words  | 4 Pages

    Over the years, childhood has changed in many ways. With the invention of the printing press and the spread of a print culture, this culture became the causal agent of the rise of childhood. When the print culture was replaced with an electronic medium, it became the primary agent in the decline of childhood (Postman, 1994).

    Read More

  • Children Should Not Use Smartphones Excessively

    926 Words  | 2 Pages

    Smartphones prohibit children from socially interacting. Children who use their parent’s smartphones for playing games miss out on opportunities to interact with others. Children can become addicted to the games, this can cause problems later in life when they need social skills.

    Read More

More about Is Today's Culture Ruining Childhood?

Open Document