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Television Has Negative Effect on Children
It is common knowledge that television affects children very badly. Children in most countries watch it an average of two to five hours every day, so it is little wonder that parents and teachers are worried about effects of excessive television viewing on children. There is reason for that concern. To my mind, the fact that television’s impact on children deserves people’s attention because as we all know kids are very susceptible to television and unfortunately it does not take much time for them to get addicted to it and at the same time to become subject to the negative influence of mass media. Studies show that extensive television viewing may be associated with violent or aggressive behavior, poor academic performance, obesity, and the use of drugs and alcohol. Various researches on the effects of television viewing revealed a number of possible problems. Today, in addition to entertaining and informing, television serves as a background noise, as babysitter and which is also important, as a way to avoid social interaction. Therefore, it should always be kept in mind in what certain negative ways television can influence children.
One of the main negative effects that television produces on children is that it stunts their development. As an illustration we can mention that television does not stimulate language development. Children who spend a great deal of time watching television have less time for playing, reading, doing homework, and talking with other children and adults. Language skills are best fostered through reading and active two-way participation in conversations play activities. Excessive television watching can interfere with growth in these areas. Children may hear new words on a television show, but this is not the same as speaking. A child spending four or more hours a day watching TV loses the time needed for conversation, and may well find difficulty becoming articulate and fluent, and be less able to speak and write in complete sentences then a child who, it seems, “just never stops talking”.
Mass media are often blistered for the act what it fails to increase mental activity to a required degree. It is necessary for a kid to analyze and to think some phenomena over when he or she faces it in real life. At the same time many children get the so-called second-hand knowledge when they obtain some experience not based on his or her personal observations. A crucial element of thinking is extrapolating from what you know and figuring out how it applies in a new situation .School requires it, TV does not. Many researches have fond that children who watch too much TV believed it takes less effort to learn from books because they are used to being spoon-fed with information by television. It takes very little mental energy to follow a TV show thus a kid may become lazy and as a result tend to read less and perform relatively poor in school.
Likewise, television was never mentioned as benefiting early childhood development. Both parent-child interaction and the child’s own experiences during the formative years profoundly affect the development of a child’s brain, and the degree to which that child will function to his or her potential. Repeated experiences, whether alone or with a parent, help ”wire” the child’s brain. So, TV is not advocated as a useful activity for young children because television robs time for stimulating brain development
Next, opportunities for a child’s imagination to develop are also denied by habitual TV viewing. Children need some unstructured time to allow imagination skills to form by thinking about a book read or a story heard, a conversation at home or an event in school, or just the scene outdoors.
Apart from causing a certain drop in children’s creativity by providing an opportunity to get everything ready on the screen, TV interferes with the development of reading skills. A child must learn to move the eyes back and forth across the page in order to read. But with television, the eyes fix on the screen. An hour a day in school learning to read cannot compete with four or more hours with the eyes fixed on a TV screen. It is little wonder that many children find difficulty learning to read.
One more serious outcome of television is that it impedes the growth of longer attention spans. A child can easily get used to the sound and images of TV but which is also important, the approximately seven minute length of program before a commercial break can condition a child to a seven minute attention span. In normal circumstances after about seven minutes restlessness sets in as a kids inner clock anticipate a commercial interruption. Schools expect kindergarten through second graders to have short attention spans, but also expect attention capability to increase with grade level. When that does not happen, children are disadvantaged. A student, who month after month, is inattentive in class may find it difficult to learn the material being presented. Also, extensive exposure to television may promote development of brain systems that scan and shift attention at the expense of those that focus attention. Besides, the earlier children acquire a passive TV habit, the more likely attention span will not develop normally.
It is equally important that TV draws a kids attention from the studies. Research has found that the amount of time a child spends on homework is significantly related to how well he or she does in school. Since television viewing can interfere with the completion of homework assignments and reduce the amount of sleep a child gets, excessive viewing could affect kid’s grades and alertness in school.
Again, one should keep in mind that television limits children’s physical activities. This lack of activities can be very harmful to physical health. For instance, extensive TV viewing leads to obesity, eye-strain because of high screen radiation, a kid gets a stiff neck and tired muscles.
Another effect of television viewing is that the more children watch it, the less well-socialized they are. They find it impossible to form human relationships with the peers and fail to keep the conversation going.
Besides, mass media often cut people especially children from reality. As an illustration, I can notice that children do not distinguish the commercial from the program. When programs and commercials show the same beloved characters, youngsters hardly notice the change from telling to selling. Children under the age of six will not understand the selling intend of commercials. Toddlers and preschoolers are especially vulnerable to TV`s temptations, because they gravitate more to the right-brain world of color ,images and emotion than to the left-brain world of thinking and analysis. The sooner children start watching TV passively, the more likely they will buy into a media culture which likes to dictate choices and values and pamper to low unsophisticated tastes.
Further more, television has a serious effect on a child’s behavior. During the recent years many scientific studies have investigated the connection between television violence and real violence. Though none conclude a direct cause and direct relationship, it becomes clear that watching television is one of a number of important factors affecting aggressive behavior. It is hard to escape media violence in our culture. On TV violent images are seen in films, commercials, cartoons, news broadcasts and reality-based programs. It is very difficult for kids to be aware of the pervasiveness and variety of violence in television programming because they are not mature enough thus they can easily be mistaken or deceived. Besides, a violent scene on TV means different things to each individual, depending on the age, race, religion, ethnicity, personal experiences, attitude and background of the viewer. Also important is the fact that nearly 40 % of the violent incidents on TV are initiated by characters who possess qualities that make them attractive role models. In spite of very serious physical aggression, much of this violence is undermined by humor. Psychological research has shown three major effects of seeing violence on TV. First of all, children may become less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others. Next, they are more fearful of the world around them. Moreover, they are more likely to behave in aggressive and harmful ways toward others. Finally, children become less aroused by violent scenes on the screen. In other words, they are less bothered by violence in general, and less likely to see anything wrong with it.
In short, very often there is a situation when a child is left for hours in front of a TV set with nothing else to do. He or she has never been encouraged to independently create information that is a kid does not know how to draw, how to make music or even how to read. Such a child cannot be expected to turn the TV set off. To summarize, I am convinced that television has a serious impact on children in various negative ways including affecting one’s social and emotional behavior. This is a very serious problem and it has been a topic of many scientific and psychological researches that show that excessive TV viewing especially among children can get in the way of growth and development in the areas of creativity, imagination, intelligence and language skills which result in kid’s school achievements.
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