How television effects children

When I was 2 years old, my family had the first TV. Since that time, television had become an inseparable thing in my life. In my memory, if I wanted to watch television for a long time, I needed to struggle with parents in many ways. For instance, I remember that my parents only allowed me in front of television for 2 hours per day. So, I would get up in the midnight and watch TV secretly. Although I could only see the image but could not hear the voice, I also felt so satisfied at that time. Also, sometimes I went to my friend’s home in order to watch cartoon . In a word, I tried everything to watch television when I was a child.

According to the latest annual Media in the Home survey, the average child in the United States spends about 25 hours a week in front of the television including the use of VCR, Television brought us will be pleased to see the program, let us see growth, broaden our horizons and enrich our cultural life, modern society is an important media. But because many young people watch TV for a long time, the impact of the study, rest periods, resulting in physical and mental health hazards.

David Isaacs, in his essay “Television and Children,” states that watching too much of television leads to obesity, especially if the time spent watching is not spent exercising. David said “It seems obvious that watching too much television leads to obesity, especially if the time spent watching is not spent exercising. But does increased television viewing cause obesity or do obese children tend to exercise less and watch more television? Snacking on fast foods while watching television complicates attempts to distinguish the chicken from the egg. As Joey Adams said, ‘If it weren’t for the fact that the TV set and the refrigerator are so far apart, some of us wouldn’t get any exercise at all.’ There is evidence that school-based interventions to promote exercise and improve fitness result in both weight reduction and reduced television watching.

The message is clear: obese children should watch less television, snack less and exercise more. Achieving the behaviour change is the challenge.” ( David, 2011). To be specific, Watching TV is a kind of negative rest, which consumes less energy than take part in outdoor activities. When children sit in front of the television and lack of outdoor activities for a long time, it will reduce energy consumption. Also, television advertising often could promote appetite; children often eat a lot of snacks during watching TV, which will causes excessive heat and thus lead to obesity. According to “ Are Kids Seeing More Fast-Food Ads?” Published on website on November 08,2010 which was written by Maureen Morrison. It shows“A study released today from Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity charges that fast-food companies are marketing to youth now more than ever — increasingly targeting children as young as 2 years old — using various media, and rarely offer healthy meal choices, despite the abundance of advertising about them.

Rudd Center was expected to announce the findings at a press conference Monday morning.The report’s authors studied marketing efforts of 12 fast-food chains in the U.S. — including McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s , Subway and Yum Brands’ Pizza Hut and KFC. The study said that the fast-food industry spent more than $4.2 billion on marketing and advertising in 2009, according to Nielsen Co., focusing extensively on TV, the internet, social-media sites and mobile applications.” (Maureen, 2010). New Zealand Otego university researchers take a survey between 5 and 15 years old children about the time spend on watching TV. The report published in the “international journal of obesity” mentioned that 41% of respondent who being overweight or obesity is owing to watching too much television. Furthermore, obesity exerts negative impact on children’s health.

Obesity can cause some serious physical problems. For example, obesity can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. It has negative effects on the alimentary system and endocrine system. What is more, as World Cancer Research Fund observed (2010), “obesity even can increase the risk of cancer.” Every year a number of people die owing to the obesity or some diseases caused by obesity. in the article “Considerations on the Impact of Television and Internet over the Children’s and Teenagers’ Behavior”, the author shows that the consequences of watching too much TV makes children to think less and image less. Specially, in the process of reading text, children need to fully thinking and give play to imagination. However, television presents information from clear, direct and vivid voice and image.

The features easy to make children only see the results, but ignore problems arise. Gradually, they give up thinking and ask the nature of things. And, they are accustomed to “see” rather than “think”, which causes them a reduction on the ability of think. Moreover, Watching TV takes up most of the children activity time, as well as reduces the time on looking at the picture, see the picture album, reading, game time. In fact, all of these activities have a positive influence on children’s creativity and the development of imagination. Children in reading will try to imagine the scene of text description. In the process, its creativity, imagination in virtually got culture; in the game, children will find the way to solve problem through continuous practice; so, the creativity also developed in the progress.

However, television put the ready-made scene in front of children; so, children may prefer to direct acceptance rather than imagine and create. As a result, children will be lack of imagination. In the article “The Effect of Television Viewing on Children’s Conceptions about Nutrition and Health,” Lears (1992) indicated two research questions (62-63). Firstly, does television viewing has an effect on children’s conceptions about nutrition and health? Secondly, what teenagers can see on television about the nutritional messages and typical images nowadays? The investigation is based on the fourth and fifth grade teenagers. This study explores the effects of television on children’s eating and nutrition habits by using viewing measure, control variables and data analysis methodology.

The result in this study has shown that, “Television viewing is significantly associated with inadequate nutritional practices among fourth and fifth grade children. Additionally, the amount of television viewing and misconceptions about basic nutritional principles is positively related to several important variables for the children in this age group” (Lear 62-63). Violence in television has a direct effect on children. The direct effects process suggests that children who watch a lot of violence on television may become more aggressive and they may develop favorable attitudes and values about the use of aggression to resolve conflict. Television violence can lead to aggressive behavior in children.

According to an American Psychological Association task force report on television and American society (Huston, 1992), by the time the average child (who watches 2-4 hours of television daily) leaves elementary school, he or she will have witnessed at least 8,000 murders and more than 100,000 other assorted acts of violence on television. The large number of violence on TV has a potential impact on audience, especially for young people. The information appeared on television may transfer children’s perceive on violence. According to Margaret Thomas’ study, he found that long-term exposure to violence on television makes some children have stronger tolerate on attacking and violent behaviors, but lower arousal level. China’s social psychology home Hua Rong also points out that spending too much time on watching violent TV programs not only results in children’s emotional indifference and lack of sympathy, but also reduces the trust of others.

The children who chronically get access to violence programs will gradually feel numb and accustomed to violence. Long-term addicted to television not only make teenagers become violent, but also affect children’s ability of communication. As a result, when young people have conflict with others, they always do not know how to cope with it correctly. The authors of article “Television Violence and Its Effects on Young Children” also point out that because young folks cannot fully understand daily basis. The author said “In addition to theories that television can cause children to be more aggressive and less sensitive to the results of violence, there is also the theory that televised violence causes viewers to be afraid. According to this theory, the misconstrued world presented on television is seen as a mirror of reality and viewers become convinced they will fall victim to violence.

It is reasoned that viewers absorb information without analyzing it and subsequently develop false beliefs about law enforcement and crime.” (Simmons,p150). With its ability to inform, entertain, teach, what they see on television, they are very much under its influence. According to the result of National Institutes of Mental Health in 1993, there is a causal relationship existed between television violence and aggressive behavior. Also,In the article, “Television and Violence,” Centerwall (1992) points out that television violence leads to children’s aggressive behaviors (267- 285). Centerwall (1992) says, “Neonates are born with an instinctive capacity and desire to imitate adult human behavior.” In fact, it is pretty difficult for teenagers to distinguish the right from wrong. Moreover, young children always do not know what they are watching from television.

According to an investigation between three and four year old children, most of them are unable to distinguish fact from fantasy when they are viewing television programs. Additionally, Centerwall (1992) also states that television has a huge impact on the rate of the homicide (270). According to Centerwall (1992), “Following the introduction of television into the United States, the annual white homicide rate increased by 93%, from three homicides per 100 000 white population in 1945 to five point eight per 100 000 in 1974; in South Africa, where television was banned, the white homicide rate decreased by seven percent, from homicides per 100,000 white population in 1943 through 1948 to 2.5 per 100,000 in 1974.” Finally, According to “Television can have positive or negative effects on our children. Children learn by watching and imitating adults.

Television provides many models for children that may not be what you wish for your kids. Although we know television is fantasy, children often see TV as real. Knowing this, parents must consider the stereotypes, violence, sexual content, and commercials that kids watch and ensure this is what they want to teach their children.” (Gilles,2001). Kids today are bombarded with sexual messages and images in all media—television, magazines, advertisements, music, movies and the Internet. Teenagers can get access to a lot of sexual information, sexually suggestive, even sex every day from TV. Unfortunately, television programs seldom introduce birth control and self-protection method, or about the consequences of sexual behavior and assume responsibility education, etc. Therefore, children have a bad recognition on reproductive health related knowledge.

The wrong impression brought by TV programs will give children adverse effects. Parents are often concerned about whether these messages are healthy. According to a 2001 study from the Kaiser Family Foundation, three out of four prime time shows contain sexual references. Situation comedies top the list: 84 percent contain sexual content. Of the shows with sexual content, only one in ten included references to safe sex, or the possible risks or responsibilities of sex. Gilles Pinette, in his article “How television affects our children” claims that Schools may offer some sex education, but the leading educator for our children is the TV. “Only one-third of parents discuss sex with their children. Schools may offer some sex education, but the leading educator for our children is the TV. Kids may see thousands of sexual references and situations per year on television.

They rarely observe safe sexual practices such as using the birth control pill or condoms. Soap operas reinforce this poor education with characters having frequent affairs and rarely showing the consequences of careless sexual activity such as unplanned pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases.” (Gilles,2001). Kids may see thousands of sexual references and situations per year on television. They rarely observe safe sexual practices such as using the birth control pill or condoms. After reading “Watching TV hinders kids’ math achievement, study finds” published on May 03,2010. The author Kristin Rushowy states that “TV doesn’t just turn kids into couch potatoes — it also makes them poorer math students, less interested in school and more likely to be bullied, says a long-term study on the toll of the tube on children.”(Kristin, 2010).

Children those spent more times on televisions got lower scores on math. ““We see negative effects across the board,” said lead author Linda Pagani of the Sainte-Justine hospital research centre, Université de Montréal.“Television exposure is a very passive activity both intellectually and physically, and what we see eight years later (at age 10) is that these kids are suffering from the effects of having developed passive habits. They have higher BMI (body mass), less preference for physical activity, they engage in physical activity less and in the classroom their teachers rate them as less persevering, less task-oriented and less autonomous.””

Television has a major impact on children’s knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. Television influence children in four areas: poorer health habits and attitudes, children’s aggressive behavior, intelligence, and sex perceive. And, how much impact TV has on children depends on many factors: how much they watch, their age and personality, whether they watch alone or with adults, and whether their parents talk with them about what they see on TV.

Bibliography
Isaacs, David. “Television and Children.” Journal of Pediatrics & Child Health, Mar. 2011. Maureen Morrison, “Are Kids Seeing More Fast-Food Ads?”, Advertising Age website, November 08, 2010. Shea, B. E; Harvey-Berino, J. R; Johnson, R. K. “Watching television: how does it influence the dietary
quality of children?” Nutrition Bulletin, Jun. 2010.p165-171 Simmons, Betty Jo, Stalsworth, Kelly, Wentzel, Heather. “Television Violence and Its Effects on Young Children.” Early Childhood Education Journal, Mar. 1999. p149-153 Centerwall, Brandon S. ， “Television and Violence.” JAMA, June 10, 1992–Vol 267, No. 22 Pinette, Gilles. “How television affects our children.” Windspeaker, Jun.2001. Kristin Rushowy, “Watching TV hinders kids’ math achievement, study finds”, the star website, Mon May 03 2010 .Lears, Margaret O’Connor. “The Effect of Television Viewing on Children’s Conception about Nutrition and Health.” (1992). Web. 16 Oct.2013 Lăzărescu, Mihaela Păişi. “Considerations on the Impact of Television and Internet over the Children’s and Teenagers’ Behavior.” Petroleum-Gas University of Ploiesti Bulletin, Educational Sciences Series, 2010. P96-101