Ever since the 1950’s, television has become a very popular form of media. About 99% of American families currently own a TV, and “the average household owns 2.83 television sets” (“Children and Television,” Did You Know). In the past, television has often been credited with both shaping and reflecting society as a whole. It has been known for influencing people’s decisions and even their core beliefs. This has led many people to become concerned with the effects that television has on society. People are especially worried about the effect that it can have on children. Let’s start by exploring both sides of this issue.
Many people fear that “children today are watching more television than children in the past” (Skouteris and McHardy 87). The American Academy of Pediatrics currently recommends that children should watch “no more than 2 hours of quality programming a day” (Laurson 209). That is the equivalent of 14 hours a week. However, most children tend to usually watch 15 to 20 hours (Jost 723). Some will even watch as much as “27 hours a week” (Clark 265). Because of the amount of time children spend watching TV; many feel that television is doing more harm than good.
One concern people have is that, when children watch too much TV, it can affect their health. Some people are concerned that spending too much time in front of the television cuts in on children’s playtime and decreases their opportunities for getting the proper amount of exercise. This can affect their development as well as their health. Studies show that children who don’t get enough exercise due to watching too much television are more than two times more likely to be overweight (Laurson 211).
Another reason people feel that television can harm kids is by decreasing their ability to learn. This is because they feel it limits children’s opportunities to think, reason, and develop properly by cutting in on time that children could spend doing other things. Others feel that too much TV can cause children to develop attention problems later in their life. In many cases, people feel this also leads to doing poorly in school, and limits the success of children when they get to college (Boyse, How TV affect performance in school).
Violence is a third reason why people feel television is harmful to children. Studies have shown that young children tend to “seek out and pay attention to violence” in the media due to the “vivid production features” (loud music, rapid movement, etc.) it shows (Josephson 3). There are two main effects which people feel violence has on children. These are the effects of aggression and fear. Some children who watch violent content on TV begin to think that what they are viewing is portraying reality. As a result, they begin to view the world as “mean and scary” (Josephson 5). Other children have been shown to imitate the violence they viewed in cartoons such as “Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, and Tom and Jerry” (Clark 267). As a result, they tend to become both more “physically and verbally aggressive” (Josephson 15).
Although many people feel television is harmful to children, there are still others who believe that TV is more beneficial than it is harmful. These people feel that television can be a powerful influence for good in children’s lives. They feel that TV can influence children to develop positive qualities and abilities in their lives which will help them better understand and relate to the world around them.
One example of how some people feel television can benefit children is by helping them gain an education. Currently, all television stations are required to show at least 3 hours of educational programming a week (Jost 727). There are even some stations, such as PBS, the Discovery Channel, and the History Channel, that devote all their time to educational material. Educational material on TV has also been proven to “have a traceable long-term impact on children” (Jost 728).
Some of the educational shows that have been on PBS in the past include Sesame Street, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and others (Jost 727). These shows are specifically designed to teach children a broad range of subjects such as reading skills, science, math, writing, and history (Stanton). Educational programming has been shown to be effective in helping children prepare for school, and have better attitudes when learning (Jost 728).
In some instances, educational programs have also been proven to help children1 get better grades. For example, one study showed that “high school students who had regularly watched Sesame Street, and Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood as preschoolers had about a one-quarter point higher grade average than a group of students who did not” (Jost 728). In another test, children between the ages of 3 and 5 who watched educational programming for more than 3 hours a day “scored higher for reading recognition in tests taken at ages 6 to 7” (Stanton, par. 7).
Another way people feel television can benefit children is by helping them develop analytical and problem solving skills. Parents can help influence this by watching the TV with their children, and asking questions like “What do you think will happen next?”, “who did it?”, and “what will the result be?” and so forth. This benefits children because it helps them learn to think more about what they are watching. It also helps them form their own opinions, and learn to “think, problem solve, and predict” for themselves (Bryson, sec. 5).
So what do I personally believe about the impact of television on children? The side that I believe to be most correct is that television can be harmful to children. Most children start watching TV from almost the time they are born (Clark 265). According to the Federal Communications Commission, “Television remains a focal point for children’s media entertainment” (“Children and Television,” What’s Happening). Children usually spend more time with the TV than they do with any other form of media. TV is also the biggest in-home activity for children next to sleeping (Jost 730).
As time goes on, the content on television only seems to get worse. For example, Sexual interactions per hour in family-hour shows jumped from 2 per hour in 1976 to 8 per hour in 1996 (Jost 727, graph). This increase in bad content has become a huge concern for parents and professionals alike since children often base their decisions on the things they view. In 1991 Newton N. Minow, a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and chairman of PBS expressed concern with the direction that TV content is going. He said, “In 1961, I worried that my children would not benefit much from television…Now, I worry that my grandchildren will actually be harmed by it” (qtd. in Jost 739).
Too much television watching can negatively affect a child in many ways. As I mentioned earlier, television can have a negative effect on a child’s health. The main way that TV affects children’s health is by increasing the risk of obesity. Some studies have even suggested that the very act of being in the same room as a TV that was turned on for more than 2 hours “was a risk factor for being overweight at ages three and four-and-a-half.” In fact, TV has been shown to have a larger influence in overweight risk than diet (Boyse, Children who watch more TV).
In 2007, a study was done by the American Dietetics Association. This study was conducted on a sample of 709 children between the ages of 7 and 12 years old. It included 318 boys and 391 girls. The study measured how much physical activity and how much screen time the children got in a week. For the purposes of this study, the children were told they could only watch 2 hours of “quality programming” on TV a day. They were also told that to meet physical activity requirements, the boys had to walk at least 1,300 steps a day and the girls had to walk at least 1,100 steps a day (Laurson et. al 209-210).
According to this study, the boys who watched more than 2 hours of TV a day were 1.69 times more likely to be overweight, and the girls who watched more than 2 hours were 1.22 times more likely to be overweight. Overall, children who didn’t meet the physical activity requirement or the screen time requirement were 3 to 4 times more likely to be overweight (Laurson et. al 211).
In addition to a lack of exercise, watching more than 2 hours of TV a day exposes children to a lot of advertising. This too can contribute to childhood obesity. Children are exposed to approximately 20,000 TV ads a year. About two-thirds of these ads are for junk foods that have high calories, sugars, salts, and fats, and very few nutrients (Boyse, Children who watch more TV). Because children are so exposed to these kinds of products, they tend to want to snack on junk foods a lot more. In turn, their bodies become deprived of the nutritious, healthy food that they need, and they gain more weight. This, of course, can increase the risk of future health problems such as cancer, heart disease, and other serious health problems.
Television can also be harmful to young children by hindering their ability to learn. Currently, the American Academy of Pediatrics encourages parents not to let their children watch television before the age of 3. This is because the first few years of a child’s life are considered the most important years of their development. Watching TV before this age has been shown to threaten the development of a child’s cognitive abilities, and make it harder for them to analyze and process new information. Some experts even believe that watching too much TV before the age of 3 can lead to serious attention problems later in a child’s life, such as ADHD (Boyse, Does TV affect children brain development). According to a study done by E. Michael Foster and Stephanie Watkins at the University of North Carolina, “each extra hour of television viewed per day [between the ages of 1 and 3] is associated with a 10% increased likelihood of developing attention problems [at age 7]” (Foster and Watkins 374).
Another way that television can limit a child’s learning is by affecting their performance in school. One study from the University of Michigan showed that TV can interfere with things like reading, doing homework, and getting enough sleep (Boyse, How does TV affect performance in school?). For example, a 3 to 4 year old who comes from a home that watches TV very heavily spends between 25% and 38% less time reading. This results in a 2.38 greater chance of them not being able to read at their appropriate age level (Vanderwater et. al 574).
Watching more than 2 hours of TV a day has also been known in many cases to lead to lower grades and test scores (“Children and Television,” bullet 12). This is especially the case if the TV is located in a child’s bedroom. For example, one study, done at John Hopkins University, found that “third graders with television is their bedrooms…scored between seven and nine points lower on standardized mathematics, reading and language arts tests than did their peers” (Conger, par. 5).
In addition, watching too much TV as a child, has been shown to affect how much education a person gets later in their life. According to a study by the University of Michigan, watching television as a child can have a long term impact on a person’s educational accomplishments at age 26. This study found that those who watched more TV as a child had “increased chances of dropping out of school and decreased chances of getting a college degree” (Boyse, How does watching TV affect performance in school?).
Violence is the final reason why I feel television is harmful to children. Elder M Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles once said “far too much programming is not wholesome and uplifting but is violent, degrading, and destructive to moral values” (par. 4). Currently, the average child sees about “8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence before finishing elementary school” (Clark 265). Over the years the amount of TV violence has become much more common. For example, between 1980 and 1990, the amount of violent acts per hour for kids shows alone jumped from 18.6 to 26.4 (Clark 276). Now, in 2010, about two-thirds (66%) of all television programming contains violence (Boyse, TV and aggressive or violent behavior?).
Due to the increase in TV violence, psychiatrist Carole Lieberman, who heads the National Coalition on Television Violence, once expressed the concern that children’s minds were being “polluted by the drug of violence.” She argued that the current standards for content on television are “utter nonsense” and should be corrected (qtd. in Clark 270).
There are two main affects that violent programs can have on children. The first of these is aggressiveness. Since 1950, thousands have connected media violence with aggressiveness and violent behavior. Through television, children are taught that “violence is a fun and effective way to get what you want” (Gavin, screen 2). Violence is also portrayed as being the best way to solve a problem. Many times it is even accompanied by humor (Boyse, TV and aggressive or violent behavior?).
Because violence is shown as being enjoyable rather than harmful, children often become desensitized to the damaging effects that it can have on others and naturally become more aggressive in order to get their way (Boyse). One of the first studies that showed this occurred in 1956. According to this study, one group of children were “found to be more likely to hit and harass other kids and break toys” after watching a Woody Woodpecker cartoon (Clark 273). Children have especially been proven to be more “physically and verbally aggressive” when they own toys that are based on the violent shows they watch (Josephson 15).
TV violence can also have long term effects a child’s aggressiveness and violence when they get older. Between 1960 and 1996, Leonard Eron, a psychologist who chairs the American Psychological Association Commission on Violence and Youth (APA), did a study of 875 boys and girls. This study tracked these boys and girls from the age of 8 to 30, and studied the crime rates of that group over time. According to this study, those who watched more TV as kids were convicted of more serious crimes when they got older. This study, in addition to other studies, found that heavy viewers of violence are 3 to 15 percent more likely to behave aggressively and commit a crime than those who viewed TV lightly (Clark 268). Around the same time, another psychiatrist named Brandon S. Centerwall also speculated that “if television had never been invented society would have been spared 10,000 homicides, 70,000 rapes and 700,000 assaults” (Clark 278).
The second effect that violent programs can have on children is fear. According to one study, “about 50 percent of preschoolers report having been scared by something on television” (Josephson 16). Psychologist Leonard Eron once stated, “The child who has been watching programs with primarily aggressive content comes away with the impression that the world is a jungle fraught with dangerous threats” (qtd. in Clark 266). In other words, they view the world as “a mean and scary place” (Josephson 5). One of the main reasons for this is that young kids often assume that everything they view is reality. This is because they are still learning how to distinguish between what is real and what is fantasy (Gavin, screen 2). Some of the signs that a child is scared include things like nightmares, sleeping problems, and anxiety (Boyse, Can TV scare or traumatize kids?).
Children between the ages of 8 and 12 have also been shown to be frightened by violent and scary images. Many of them can even develop fear of being a victim of the violence they witness (Boyse, Can TV scare or traumatize kids?). I myself once had an experience as a kid where I got scared of being a victim because of a movie. When I was about 9 years old I saw the movie Jurassic Park for the first time. I remember when I first saw this movie I became absolutely terrified of the T-rex in the film due to its violent nature of chasing and eating people. To my 9 year old self, the T-rex came across as very real and lifelike. In fact, I remember struggling to fall asleep later that night because I was afraid that a T-rex would peek through the window any second and eat me.
Although I think television can be harmful to children, I also believe that there are ways parents can limit the amount of damage that is done by regulating the amount of television that is watched. Many specialists recommend that parents remove the television from their kid’s rooms (“Children and Television,” What’s Happening). Other suggestions to parents included turning the TV off during meals, not allowing TV watching during homework time, and treating TV as a privilege instead of a right (Gavin screen 5). Parents can also “restrict the amount and type of programs children watch” and encourage kids to find other activities to do (Josephson 33).
In conclusion, there are many people who feel television is harmful to kids. Others believe it can be a benefit to them. I personally believe that television can have a harmful affect on children. Television can harm both a child’s health and ability to learn. It can also affect children through causing them to become more aggressive towards, or fearful of the world around them. Finally, parents can help to reduce the damaging effects of television on children by regulating both what they watch and how much time they spend watching it. I strongly feel that as parents work to regulate the amount, content and types of programs that children watch, it will help the children to learn and grow more from what they view instead of being harmed by it.
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