Children lose control of their viewing and their parents have no time to identify whether a particular program makes sense for their son or daughter or can bring harm. The average household with children has a television set on over sixty hours a week and during this sixty hours this window into the real world is trying to change our children. Does television spoil our children who begin viewing their first programs regularly three or four years before entering school?
One high school student wrote: When you start hearing Barbara Walters talking about mass murder like it is a batch of oatmeal cookies, it is going to effect you. It is clear to people that those who watch more violence are more aggressive because of the emotional and psychological effect of television. Children start to be more apathetic towards violence in real life and less willing to stop it. Programmers try to keep the kids in front of television by using violent actions in cartoons rather than educational situations in shows. They use the some rule as teachers who know that children’s attention is limited in time. Everything must be exciting! A friend of mine noticed that her kids started to be ruder with their friends after a certain number of hours spent in front of television. Watching and listening all the time about murder children know exactly how to communicate, why, when and under what circumstances they could do it. Beside this from what children see on TV they may understand that when you hurt somebody you get resolution of your problem.
Not only does violence on television have a bad impact on children. Television may change children’s activities. How often do we watch our children playing in the fresh air? Do they develop time and interest for reading and communicating with their peers? Television is their best friend, favorite book and all-powerful magician. However, we know that television can not replace a book, and be a substitute of full value for friend because television is able to make us just passive viewers. When reading a book one has to think and analyze. When watching television children’s attention is focused on the action of the program, and not on the question of why characters did something and what is the explanation for this. For example, reading the book ,Alice in Wonderland ,
children have questions on how to understand meaning of some poems. They need to think about words that have different meanings. The author makes his readers think and develop their attitude toward everything that is going on. Watching the movie with the same name Alice in Wonderland we lose all those important elements.
All different programs are designed for different goals and most of these goals
can be helpful for children. Those who think that television viewing is beneficial would
say that children can learn from all kinds of programs. Those are instructional and educational television, which are widely available not only on commercial, but also on public television stations. However, we must mention the unintentional learning that takes place. The purpose of some programs (such as Bernie and his friends and different films) is to teach children how to control their behavior.
As a result, in most cases, television has a really negative impact on people and only those viewers who are able to choose programs wisely may find television beneficial for their development.
In conclusion, let us think about television’s impact on children and not allow our children to be fooled by the most attractive window in our houses.
English Essays
