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Language development and cognitive development in children
Language development and cognitive development in children
Effects of television violence
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Does violence on television have a negative effect on children and teenagers? The violence seen on television has had surprising negative effect. Violence shown on television causes children and teenagers to develop behavioral problems and learning disabilities. Such behavioral and learning problems include; language development, school performance / learning, cognitive development and their general behavior to others (Kinnear 27). In a study on the correlation between violence and television done with 1,565 teenage boys over a six-year period in London, William Belson, a British psychologist, found that every time a child saw someone being shot or killed on television they became less caring towards other people. William Belson also discovered that every time a child viewed this violence on television, they lost a fragment of their inhibitions towards others. In addition to William Belson’s study, studies performed by many scientists and doctors’ show that seeing violence on television causes viewers to become less sensitive to the pain of others (Mudore 56).This is why Children’s under the age of 13 should not be allowed to watch any television show related to any kind of sex or violence; to the concern of psychological effect on child’s development.
Language skills are best developed through reading and interacting with others by conversation and playing. Think of it as like a tennis match, where one person serves the ball, and the other returns it. Children learn language when adults or others interact with them, returning their expressions and responding to noises and questions. Excessive television watching can impede this development. The television and computer do not talk back in a genuine way (Selnow 489). Stu...
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...9.4 (2010): 95-107. Advanced Placement Source. EBSCO. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.
Dorey, Alexandra. "Effect of a television programme on nutrition cognitions and intended behaviors." Nutrition & Dietetics 67.3 (2010): 47 - 51. Advanced Placement Source. EBSCO. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.
Selnow, Huang. "DOES TELEVISION VIEWING AFFECT CHILDREN'S BEHAVIOUR?." Pacific Economic Review 14.4 (2009): 474 - 489. Advanced Placement Source. EBSCO. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.
James, Anderson. "The Effects of Background Television on the Toy Play Behavior of Very Young Children." Child Development 79.4 (2008): 25 - 30. Advanced Placement Source. EBSCO. Web. 3 Apr. 2011.
Alfred Mathew, and Will Shapiro. "Effects of Television Violence on Children and Teenagers." Quarterly Journal of Economics 123.1 (2008): 48 - 63. Advanced Placement Source. EBSCO. Web. 3 Apr. 2011
Thomas, Paul. " Effects of Television On Young Children (Interview With Top Voted Pediatrician)." YouTube. YouTube, 10 Apr. 2013. Web. 18 April. 2014.
Eron, L.D. (1963). Relationship of television viewing habits and aggressive behavior in children. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 193-196.
Hepburn, Mary A. "TV Violence! A Medium’s Effects Under Scrutiny." Social Education. Sept 1997: pp244-249. SIRS Researcher. Available <http://researcher.sirs.com/>
The effect of television on children’s behavior is a topic that has continued to evoke interest in psychologists. In the investigations educators suggest that television has replaced other forms of socialization such as school and family, reason being that children spend more time in watching television as compared to time spent in school.
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.
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
... for children. Children are exposed to 20,000 advertisements a year. The average child watches 8,000 televised murders and 100,000 acts of violence before finishing elementary school. By the time children graduate from high school, those numbers more than doubles. Furthermore, television is shown to influence attitudes about race and gender. Pro-social and anti-social behaviors are influenced by television.
Television has as both an entertainer and an educator for children. Neil Postman supports television for its valuable contribution to language development in children, saying, “Long before they have learned to read, or for that matter, even begun to master their language, children may accumulate, through television, a fund of knowledge that was simply inaccessib...
American Psychological Association. "Violence on Television. What Do Children Learn? What Can Parents Do?" APA Online. www.apa.org/publicinfo/violence.html. Accessed October 23, 2001.
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.
The general pattern of viewing is one of the steady rise in the number of hours viewed from early childhood to preadolescence and then a sharp drop in viewing during the adolescent years. According to audience rating surveys, the typical American household has the television set on for more than seven hours each day, and children age 2 to 11 spend an average of 28 hours per week viewing. There is a growing concern in this country about teenage violence and how it is connected to the violence seen on the television. The impressionable youth of America somehow fall victim to spending many hours a day watching television and being exposed to violence. Studies show that the average child has witnessed eight thousand murders before they actually finished elementary school.
Freedman, Jonathan. "Television Violence Does Not Contribute to Aggressive Behavior in Young People." April 2007. Opposing Viewpoints. .
Television violence is also a cause of both violent and aggressive behavior in teenage boys. According to the evidence in a study done by Turner, Hesse, and Peterson-Lewis, it was concluded that watching television violence had a long-term increase in aggression in boys (Hough 1). In addition to this study, Dr. William A. Belson evaluated fifteen hundred boys, aged thirteen to sixteen years, and he determined that boys with heavy television exposure are more likely to commit violent acts than other boys (Langone 51). In Belson’s study, he discovered that the effect of each violent act on television was collective, and over time, Belson discovered that the boys engaged in many aggressive acts, including painting graffiti, breaking windows, aggressive play, swearing, and threatening other boys with violence (Kinnear 26).
Benefits of watching television at the young age would be that children’s social skill, emotional skill and creativity can be improved by watching the talk shows; it is proved by a study. For example, Children can learn how to communicate with other people and how to react properly when they are asked to response. In addition, TV shows such as C.S.I Miami, Criminal Minds and Bones can teach children how to think logically and stragically. Although books can transfer the knowledge to the young generations, but it has limitations that certain facial expressions and body languages cannot be transferred by few words. Furthermore, the beautiful images of the nature on the tv screen can let the children to take a long travel from their home to the deep in the ocean, top of Mt.Everest or middle of Sahara the dessert.