The effect of television on children

The Effect of Television on Children Jose L. Carrasco-Vega COMM215 August 21, 2012 Adrienne Slaughter, Ph. D. The Effect of Television on Children Television plays big roll on children and adolescents lives. Children daily, routine activities involve playing games, watching TV, listening to music, and reading books. Whichever background child or adolescent comes from, majority of parents have forgotten amount of time their children spend behind television. A survey of 11 European countries and Israel found that 98% to 100% of children watch television and, on average, watch for approximately 2 hours daily. Similarly, children in Australia view television about 2 hours per day. Children in the UK, Israel, and the USA spend the most time (almost 3 hours daily) watching television. (Byrd-Bredbenner, Grenci, & Quick, Sep2010) Study moves on to show children and adolescent watch thousand of commercials each year many of them aimed to advertisement that are not educational. Television has diverse effects on physical and psychological effects on children and adolescent. Effects of television include learning, behavior, and health issues. Effects of Learning Learning is acquiring new, or modifying existing, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences and may involve synthesizing different types of information. In today society television plays big role on everyone daily life. (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 2012) Not just only television good place where you can come to get your daily information, like for example morning news, weather or road condition. However, same way television can be informational it can also be distracting. Television has a powerful effect on children; some of these effects are health and behavior. Moreover, television reduces attention with long and short time cognitive function. For this, reasoned parents need to control amount time their children watch television. As parents, we are first line of defense in our children everyday life. This includes their education, learning, behavior, and especially their health. Behavior Television violence and the impact it has on children is a growing concern in the world today. Although research indicates that violence on television triggers aggressive behavior in children, the characteristics of those children also need to be examined. Television has great impact on children of all ages. These impacts include social, physical, and psychological impacts. Between ages of 1-3 years of age, child brain is developmental stage. At this stage, children tend to imitate what they see or hear. Studies show television exposure at this young age has behavioral effects on children. When children watch a television movie, several characteristics of the movie or program can capture their attention. With child time being, spend behind television, instead of reading or doing educational studies. What a child sees on television is what he or she reenacts. Take for example death of six-year-old Tiffany Eunick. Little girl attacker Lionel Tate 13 year old play mate. Lionel killed Tiffany by reenacting wrestling move he had watch on television. According to the lawyer, Jim Lewis, “ the teenager —who weighs almost 180lb but has the mental age of an eight-year-old – was incapable of distinguishing between the mock brutality and phoney personas of the WWF and the real harm he was capable of inflicting”. The defense calls Tiffany’s death ” a horrible accident”. (The Telegraph, 2001) Not just only we are able to see behavioral effects television have children, but we are able to whiteness cruelty can happen, when parents do not take leading role of educating their children on what is real and what is not real. Tiffany, death is grim reality influence by effects television has over child mental decision. Television is not bad source of entertainment. Nevertheless, when children left to spend long period’s time behind television parents left to face reality and consequences like Tiffany death. David Satcher, the United States Surgeon General and the country’s most senior public health official, stated: ” A substantial body of research now indicates that exposure to media violence increases children’s physically and verbally aggressive behavior in the short term.” (The Telegraph, 2001) Effect of Television Health Issues There is a growing concern with children’s health in America. In society, being overweight, parents wonder if their children are eating healthy meals. Like mention above paragraphs, children and young adolescent spend large amounts of time watching television. Television plays constant role on this epidemic. Children watch hundreds of commercial each week, with some commercial sending large amount of mix information based on nutrition. In addition, Carol Byrd-Bredbenner also mention “ Content analyses of television programming indicate that, children see thousands of commercials each year, many of which advertise foods that are calorie-laden, fatty, salty, sweet and low in fiber and include misleading or inaccurate nutrition-related information”. (Byrd-Bredbenner, Grenci, & Quick, Sep2010) For this reason, parents need to set boundaries what their children watch on television. Good ways for parents educate their kid’s healthy eating habits. By taking leading role to educate them what are healthy meals and those that are not healthy. By Parents, taking this leading role America will have fighting chance not just only to educate our children what is healthy or unhealthy. Nevertheless, way to get our children away from television and up their feet engages them outdoor activities. Conclusion In journal Conditioning intentional skills, NR Cooper mention “ Clearly, these are preliminary findings but they hint at some very interesting and as yet unexplored effects of television viewing on children that warrant further investigation. ” (Cooper, Uller, Pettifer, & Stolc, 2009) The intention misguides parents of a controversial topic. The time one allows children to watch TV for the purpose of entertainment. The message written within this persuasive essay chine light effects of prolong period watching television. This information here is to inform parents, of effects television have over children and adults. In addition, as a parent one should monitor TV shows, commercials, programs, and movies. Adults have the final decision of the amount of TV watched in the houses hold and the responsibility. References Byrd-Bredbenner, C., Grenci, A., & Quick, V. (2010, September). Nutrition & Dietic. Effect of a television programme on nutrition cognitions and intended behaviours. Full Text Available, 67(3), 143-149. Cooper, N. R., Uller, C., Pettifer, J., & Stolc, F. C. (2009, October). Acta Paediatrica. Conditioning attentional skills, 98(10), 1651-1655. doi: 10. 1111/j. 1651-2227. 2009. 01377. x The Telegraph. (2001, January). TV wrestling in the dock over death of girl, 6. Retrieved from http://www. telegraph. co. uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1318836/TV-wrestling-in-the-dock-over-death-of-girl-6. html Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (2012, July). Learning. Retrieved from http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Learning