Television Influence On Children

Television is one of the biggest sources of entertainment for children. Kids aged two to eleven watch twenty-four hours and sixteen minutes of television per week on average(Hinkley). Doing any activity for that amount of time during a week will affect a person’s well being and behaviour, especially a child since they are still developing. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that children watch no more than the two hours of television a day, moreover, children under two should not watch television at all(Ghose).Research from Harvard University has shown that watching more television and having a television in your room are linked to an increase in likeliness to gain weight(“Television Watching and ‘Sit Time.’”). In contradiction

According to a study from Princeton University, one of the United States(‘) leading universities, educational programs, such as Sesame Street, have a positive academic influence on children. They found that children who watched Sesame Street had “higher levels of school of readiness” than children that did not watch it(Kirkorian). In another study, separate children were shown prosocial, neutral, and violent television over a period of nine weeks, and the watchers of the prosocial programs measured higher in task persistence and rule obedience, while the violent television show viewers showed a decrease in self-regulation(Kirkorian). As proven with this study, viewers of educational shows showed an improvement of behaviour, and viewers of non educational shows did not see benefits. Television can be a positive influence, but only if implemented correctly. Television isn’t inherently good or bad, and there are a range of factors that cause children to watch television the way they do. Since television has been a mainstream media, those factors have changed and influenced whether television is better or

Television was such a new, entrancing technology that when people bought their first television, it took precedence over activities that families had been doing for years. In 1954, the “TV Dinner” was invented, which changed the way families ate dinner(Turner). The popularity of the TV dinner exemplifies how television took up time that would be used for other important things. In the TV dinner case, it took up family time. People were so enthusiastic over the the technology that they used it to an unhealthy amount. Child psychologist Eleanor F. Maccoby discovered that children were watching 2.5 hours of television per weekday and 3.5 hours per weekend day(Turner), which is considerably more than the two hours a day by the AAP(Ghose). At this period of time, television was being used in an unhealthy way, but part of that was because people were uneducated on the effects of television and on the healthiest way to watch it. In the 1950s, there were only 4 television channels(“1950–51 United States Network Television Schedule”); therefore, children and their parents did not have the option to control what was on television, so they watched whatever was currently on. Children could not watch educational shows, even if they wanted; they watched whatever was on, regardless if it was beneficial for children. However, children on television shows during this early era of