Many people are aware how powerful and influential the media are. Over the past 30 years, the delivery and scope of mass media have changed dramatically. It have became a major influence shaping the attitudes, values, and behaviors of children, but unfortunately very often in undesirable ways. According to the essay "Family Counterculture" by Ellen Goodman, it even came to the point that parents are forced to say "no" to almost everything the media offer. In fact, the majority of parents perceive television as a promoter of passivity, consumerism, and violence. No doubt, some of the programs and ads on TV can distract kids from normal childhood activities like reading, playing, spending time with families, socializing with friends and daydreaming. Nevertheless, I believe, proper media consuming may actually enhance children's intellectual development; positively affect their social values; provide role models; and be fun, relaxing, and entertaining at the same time.
Television has many good things to offer children. Some wonderful television programs promote learning and growth. For example, according to the latest survey of the Department of Human Ecology, very young children who spent a few hours a week watching educational programs such as Sesame Street, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Reading Rainbow, Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Wizard's World and 3-2-1 Contact had higher academic test scores three years later than those who didn't watch educational programs. Thus, preschoolers learn important skills such as spelling and reading, types of color, numbers and letters and even foreign languages from the television program Sesame Street, which use animation and puppets to make learning fun. Science shows for ol...
... middle of paper ...
...g his own goals in life. For example, I happened to know a girl who admired one famous figure skater and always wanted to be like her. In a matter of time, after years and years of hard exercises, she won a gold medal in the World Figure Skating Championship.
Different people may have different opinions about television, its meaning and purpose, but regardless of what people think, whether they like it or not, television has become an indispensable part of our lives. Television provokes a love -hate response in many people. Orson Welles summed it when he said the following: "I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can't stop eating peanuts." If so, let's use it for educational purposes, as a motivator of prosocial beliefs and as a source for a role model. After all, how television affects us and our children depends on how we use it.
Clifford, Brian R., Barrie Gunter, and Jill L. McAleer. Television and Children: Program Evaluation, Comprehension, and Impact. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1995. Print.
When the first television was first successfully shown, people thought that this invention brought people to a new age, and that the television was a huge benefit to humanity. Unfortunately, since then the Golden Era of television's moral and standards have fallen drastically. We are far away from the days when Lassie and the town of Mayberry ruled the airways and were the talk of America. What was once intended as a benefit for society has become its detrimental fall, now instead of upholding American society's standards, television is working to corrupt the very society it intended to help.
Television does hold a purpose in life; whether it is a good one or a bad one is completely up to the person or people who are watching it. For Steven Johnson, in his writing, he begins with a passage that states that watching television is more helpful to the brain rather than harmful. It secludes the person watching it to better understand what is happening in the world today. Arguments have put themselves forward to what has been said in his piece; such as, that certain shows can be helpful for better understanding, but most television is harmful to the minds of youth. Johnson, who has been working on this material for quite a long time, is trying to up hold what he has thought and what
Think about a blue dog, a red monster that can talk, and a Spanish speaking girl who goes on an adventure every day. To a person who has not watched television those characters might be made up people. For a child, however, those characters are Blue from Blue’s Clues, Elmo from Sesame Street, and Dora from Dora the Explorer. These three shows air on networks that are based for children, and are what could be referred to as educational entertainment; they hide learning into an entertaining television show. Experts say that this technique, that children’s education television shows use, builds a foundation that children can use for a lifetime. Though some parents may argue that these programs do more harm than good, these shows have an educational value that other children series do not have. For a child that is watching these television shows, they are not aware of the learning component; rather, they believe that they are having fun. Even though some parents argue that children’s educational programs have little to no value, television that uses the entertaining education techniques in its programing can help children develop lifelong social and educational skills before, during, and after they start and finish preschool or kindergarten by developing their memory and mimicking appropriate social behaviors.
In Marie Winn’s Essay “Television: The Plug In Drug,” she states, “Television’s contribution to family life has been an equivocal one.” Winn focuses on the issue of television's influence in the lives of American families. Her emphasis is on the medium's influence on children. Although she makes a strong case for the negative influence of television, she fails to consider all of the benefits television has brought to American families. On its own, the television is neither bad nor good. It offers many benefits: awareness, entertainment, and relaxation. Depending how the television is used, it can have a positive, or negative, effect on the family.
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
The powerful media is considered a leading influence in our society both directly and indirectly. Media is available and readily accessible today more easily than ever. Printed materials, television, sound recordings, internet, and radio all fall under the umbrella of the big bad – or seemingly bad word – media. Is media bad? How is it controlled? And where does this all stem from…? These are some of the major concerns parents are faced with in raising children in today’s times.
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.
With the invention of television sets (TV’s), came the invention of films and television programs to be shown on TV as well as the opportunity to broadcast live news stories. In modern day society, the news has become a 24-hour channel that contains violence, terrorism and numerous inhuman acts committed by ordinary citizens and repeats every story almost every hour (Ukoha 2013). Cartoons are no longer as ‘sweet as pie’ as Walt Disney had intended when he created Mickey Mouse and the rest of the Disney clan; children are now being plonked in front of cartoons that portray violence as being humorous (Ukoha 2013). Parents are no longer encouraging children to entertain themselves outside but are placing TV’s in their bedrooms, permitting them to watch whatever they want when they want to (Ukoha 2013).
The increasing popularity of television and the internet has allowed the mass media to influence its users, especially the juvenile population. As stated in Media Violence and Youth, “99% of homes in America have at least one television giving children the opportunity to view unsupervised television” (Beresin, 1999). Bradley Okdie reported that the average person spent over 3,515 hours using media in 2012 (Okdie, et al. 2014). A study done by Friedrich and Stein found that “the average 2-5 year-old views about 28 hours per week of television”, while Lyle and Hoffman found that “by the age of three, three-quarters of the children can name their favorite television program” (Meltzoff, 1988). With ratings as the driving force of the mass media,
The bidirectional nature of influence between children and the media seems to be that children use media because they grew up with it being in their everyday lives so it’s all they know. The books says “children spend an average of 2 hours a day with some electronic device and they are making choices and affecting their media environment” (pg. 270). In my own childhood, mom tried to limit our tv time but it didn’t really work because she wanted to watch tv as well and she didn’t want to be hypocritical. The media didn’t do much to teach me any educational things except a song that I learned taught me my
Television has become one of the major entertainment providers in our modern life. It sits in the living room of about almost every home in the world and it is the one thing that most people like to come home to after a long day of work or school. Not only does it give us something to laugh or get scared at but it also provides us with valuable information about what is happening around our local community and around different places in the world. But, as good as this sounds, Television may be affecting us without even realizing it. Being one of the major distractors in today 's society, it gets us attached to its content in which a lot of people spend a lot of their time watching. Being thus, watching too
The entire study of Mass Communication, says McQuail (am 118), is based on the premise that the media have significant effects on audiences. Concerns for how media texts impact and influence its users are by no means unfamiliar dating as far back as the Plato era but the pragmatic proof in identifying these effects as well as their potency remains a source of debate amongst scholars. Within the investigation into media effects, a concern for the “influence of media on children has been a prime source of social anxiety and a significant stimulator of research funding” (Oliver Boyd Barrett pp 7 module 8 guide). Children have access to a wide variety of communications media, all of which are potentially influential (Robinson and willet pp 27) however much of the research has focused on the relationship between children and television with a special focus in relation to advertising and violence. Researchers such as Postman (1983), Buckingham (1994) among others posit that children due to their youthful experiences and their inability to maturely analyse media images are more susceptible to the influence of television presenting both benefits and disadvantages. Others like Jones (1997), Halloran (1968) et al argue that children are active participants in the media experience who ca...
According to Paediatrics & Children’s Health, T.V can teach kids many different things, such as “watching Sesame Street is an example of how toddlers can learn valuable lessons about racial harmony, cooperation, kindness, simple arithmetic, and the alphabet through an educational television format.”(2003) T.V shows can teach very good lessons to children about many important things, that these kids can use in their adult life. Another positive effect of television for kids is that it sort of opens their horizons to different things and people. For example, according to The Raising Children Network, teens and children can benefit from media exposure by developing cultural and political awareness. Television, films, magazines, and social media sites expose teens and children, who might be otherwise be limited to interactions with people from their own cultural and ethnic backgrounds, to an array of different people”. (Mokeyane) Children can really benefit from watching T.V, they can learn many educational things from shows like Sesame Street, Barney, or Caillou. Also, older children can learn about other cultures and political things that might not be talked about at home. Television really helps kids learn more important personal and educational lessons, that the generations,before, never had. Children, nowadays, have a great advantage in learning much more
These important questions on the topic of children’s television viewing in its early beginnings continue to be debated in society. The creation of children’s television shows in the 1940s and 1950s offered children pure entertainment and very little smart education. According to Palmer, “there were a few shows that did teach children values and morals, but the true educational television shows for children did not appear until the late 1960s(28). Not only educational shows, but public television shows, dialogue, help in increasing a child’s vocabulary and in improving he/she speaking skills. Therefore, parents should encourage their children to watch more public television today because public television helps children to read.