The Impact of Watching TV on People - Research Proposal Example

Table of Contents

Abstract3

Keywords:3

Introduction4

Research questions5

Literature review6

How TV affect the body health6

How TV Affects the behavior?7

Sexual content7

Aggressive behavior8

What are the best solutions?9

Monitoring9

• Abstract

More people continue to be chronic addicts of the television every day. This has resulted in a lot of problems. Also, TV was meant among other important objectives, to keep lonely people busy as an idle mind is said to be a devil's workshop. Recently most of the TV shows has become the primary concern all over the world especially for children behavior. TV watching continues to be linked with lots of anti-social behaviors, and Children are most affected by the trend in television watching. The research aims at conducting a study on the effects of television on the brain development of a child. It is also will focus on how the media can manipulate the children mentality and change their attitude in life by providing evidence and examples of real life situation. Also, some of the previous studies show solutions. Never the less, we will try to find more solutions for this problem. Moreover, we will do a survey with specific questions to know how the people think and what they expect.

• • Keywords:

Media, Violence, TV, behavior, children’s, advertisements, Brain, obesity, aggressive

• Introduction

Have you ever observe your children on what they watch? What type of games they play? Or what TV series or movies they watch? Now most people think this something normal in life, and if they just ask their children to stop watch they will stop, but they have no idea how risky this is. Media is one of the main factors of the behavior and health for our children’s, and what we meant by media is everything related to watching or playing such as TV, iPhone, YouTube, Games, and Cartoon, etc.

This Research gives an in-depth look at how television viewing can affect how one perceives the world they live in, how they think about themselves or how they behave. It tries to show whether there is a direct relationship between TV viewing and the human mind. The research will also prove whether TV can increase the risk of death, reduce somebody’s intelligence or ability to concentrate.

Television has taken a significant role in shaping the children mentality and their way of thinking since they are exposed to the television shows at an early age. Research shows that most behavior of kids is influenced by something they watched on television primarily harmful behavior such as fighting (Thompson, 2014) So, we have to admit that media is a scary thing. However, this research will also focus on how we can use TV and other Media safely as possible as we can with an emphasis on the latest studies and how do they advance on this issue.

According to Shellie Braeuner, “parents and educators have long worried about the impact watching violence on television will have on children. Research suggests that their fears are well founded. A 2003 study completed by Missouri Western State University showed that children do become more violent after watching a violent program. The study followed children between the ages of 5 and 12. Their initial behavior was recorded. The children were then shown a "Tom and Jerry" cartoon clip. The behavior after the cartoon was also recorded. Every participant participated in more violent behavior after the cartoon than before.” (Braeuner, 2016) .

In this research, we will use different methods to harvest the information's we need such as a survey. Also, we will try to interview people as much as we can from a different country to see how this issue could be an effect from culture to another.

• • Research questions

In this section, we will illustrate the main questions for this research and will explain them in depth with details. There are three main questions which are:

• How TV affect the body health
  • Obesity
  • Brain issues
• How TV affect the behavior
  • Sexual content
  • Aggressive behaviors
• What are the best solutions?
  • Monitoring
  • Restrictions.

• Literature review

The literature review section is created to explore existing literature evidence related to the topic and what the existing researchers have established about it. First, the section will examine how TV affect the body systems and health causing problems such as obesity and damaging eyes and brain. Next, the section will discuss the negative behaviors related to TV such as violence tendencies, sexuality content, and in particular children’s development. Lastly, the section will explore the best solutions to prevent problems such as monitoring our children’s and blocking the sexual contents and put restrictions.

• • How TV affect the body health

Around the world, Children aged between eight and eighteen years are reportedly using media for at least eight hours a day. Out of this time, close to four hours are spent on televisions (Brodie). As a result of the long hours that the children are spending while watching television, chances are very high that they easily fall into the obesity menace that is currently a major problem in America. Research reports indicate that there is a positive correlation between long hour’s exposure to televisions and obesity (Crespo, 2001) According to Dietz and Gortmaker (1985), there is a relation exists between the time spent on watching televisions and incidences of obesity. The theory was based on three of their research that they conducted on youths who were aged between twelve and seventeen years. During the research, the other possible factors that could have had an impact or contributed towards obesity were all put under significant control.

Apart from the obesity problems, the media also does play a part in the development and growth of a child’s body. A new perspective of viewing this is by looking at the impact that media has had on the children’s brain. Although the contents being televised on the stations may not matter as such, the exposure that the children are subjected to over that period will have an impact in shaping the development of their brains. More often than not, it is the images that the children view on televisions that have an impact in shaping how the brains develop. Long hours exposure to televisions during the early stages of childhood have a destructive impact on the concentration levels and control of children when they get to around age seven (Schultheiss, 2004) It, therefore, means that if children spend most of their childhood on watching televisions, then the chances are high that controlling such things in the future may become a problem.

Television programs are created with a specific audience in mind. The content of the programs is created to (or “intending to”) appealing to a specific audience. Television watching has been associated, through research, with language development problems, eating and sleep disorders and cognitive problems in children. Most available literature suggests that television watching has more detrimental effects for children than the perceived benefits.

• • How TV Affects the behavior?

This is the most important part of our research. Recently we have seen so many issues regarding the behavior of children's, which can be directly related to television watching. This section divided into two parts the first thing is: -

• • • Sexual content

There has been a significant problem in the American media. Over the years, the mainstream media has preferred to air more sexual contents than they should. According to the arguments put across by the children’s advocates, there has been an increase in sexual contents aired by televisions from 1976 to 1998. The worse thing about these sexual contents is that they are aired during what could be considered as family hours of watching television, in the evenings. Evidence shows that by the year 1996, most children were exposed to at least eight sexual references within an hour during such family television times. According to the research that was done by Rockwell and his team, it was established that those who got affected were mostly the adolescents. The young teenagers were found to be unable to make the correct moral judgments as a result of the sexual contents that they watched on the televisions (Crespo, 2001). However, there was a significant difference in the behavior of those teenagers whose parents intervened and had discussions with them regarding sexual matters.

In addition to the sexual references, the songs that most of the teenagers listen to and the video clips and TV series are completely sexual content, for example, a song Trumpets by Jason DeRulo and I quote his lyrics “Every time that you get undressed, I hear symphonies in my head. I wrote this song just looking at you” (Tarkoff, 2015). Further, one of the best TV series in the world for the last four years, and is translated into more than 14 languages (Game of Thrones) has a lot of sexual content, and the most disturbing thing is that these contents are aired on TV without cutting any sexual scene (McGrath, 2016)

• • • Aggressive behavior

Aggressive behaviors in children and young people have different symptoms and aspects. Television has been known to cause negative behavioral changes such as fear, sexual immorality and violence. This is because the televised contents portray a world of violence and open sexuality as compared to the real world, which is calmer and guided by morals. Scholars attribute, the violent behaviors shown by most of the young people to what they emulate from television content they watch. However, this issue is still controversial, with some researchers arguing that such behavior as violence cannot be induced by external factors, but it depends on hormonal balance (Zimmerman, 2007)

According to an article by Arline Kaplan (Kaplan, 2012) ” 2 teenage boys who murdered 12 schoolmates and a teacher and injured 21 others at Columbine High School in Colorado before killing themselves he said, lived in a pathological environment. “Their lives centered around violent video games.” Another example is the behavior pattern that is formed by children who get exposed to violent video games. By the time a child takes part in the video games, they not only become observers of what is going on in the violent video games but they also take part in such violent actions. During such times, what the children witness in the games become reinforced in them so that it becomes easy for the children to grow up being violent people.

Another important factor is using games to manipulating the minds of children for example Daesh or what some people call them-them ISIS, According to Ahmed Mohammed (Mohammed, 2016) “Daesh exploit electronic games, especially the most famous in the world of military combat games, redesigning parts, and modifications included software to add images and sounds that promote Daesh and pass on their agendas, and publishes songs that call for violence and terrorism”

• • What are the best solutions?

• • • Monitoring

In this section, we will explore the best solution to the problem of televisions negatively impacting the behavior of the children. From the discussion of literature already explored, televisions have a potential negative impact on the human mentality. This is demonstrated by the effect that the televised content has on the behavior of children and young people. It is clear, therefore, that controlled watching of television is beneficial in that is both educative and entertaining. Television exposes children to a wide pool of knowledge. Some of this information is advantageous while other information can be misleading. Therefore, parents should control the time that their children watch TV. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (Dowshen, 2015), ” kids under two years old do not watch any TV and that those older than 2 watch no more than 1 to 2 hours a day of quality programming ” Also, they should check the content their children are watching. Uncontrolled television watching leads to health implications, adaptation of unacceptable behaviors such as violence, sexual immorality, etc. Also, the government and its agencies must institute laws to govern the kind of televised content and the best hours to air such contents. These laws, if existing, should be reinforced and all television stations and content developers must be put to task to ensure that watching videos are healthy to the psychosocial and intellectual development of the viewers and their families (Harris, Bargh, & Brownesll, 2009).

Restrictions

Beside of TV parents must put a limitation on the IPAD or IPhone that the children's use and it is an easy way just to make sure that you kids are on a safe side of those effects.

Methodology

Experiments, Research Participants, and Sample Size

Field tests were the primary methods used to adequately address all the research questions earlier established in the study, including how TV affects the body health (causing obesity and brain issues), as well as behavior (resulting in aggressive actions and sexual misdemeanor). Experiments were also conducted to determine the effectiveness of monitoring and restrictions in controlling TV viewing to curb the impacts of the vice.

For the study, a sample of 100 children aged between 7 and 12 was selected randomly from different schools to participate in a field experiment with the aim of addressing the research questions. The children were subjected to several experiments, where they were exposed to several TV programs and their behavior and health responses observed. The same group was later subjected to different treatment programs including restriction and monitoring to access the effectiveness of these methods in curbing the impacts resulting from TV viewing. The section below details the exact methodologies and procedures used (Habib & Soliman, 2015).

Why were Experiments Chosen as the primary method of the Study?

Several reasons can explain the choice of field operations as the primary research methods. First, tests enable professionals to get valid inferences concerning cause and effect. Besides, the most critical component of experimentation as a mechanism of the investigation is that the random selection of participants that ensures that bias is highly regulated. In fact, with a large group of members (people) the function of a chance of each subject becomes minimal. Such randomly selected groups often are viewed as equal and are usually presented with different therapies. Also, it is important to understand that experiments are significant is social studies as people can be randomly assigned to both control and treatment groups. Such analyses are critical to managing the present non-experimental, observational, and data deficiencies. Random assignment as well gives the investigator significant control over that particular treatment, including how precisely it is measured. The following are the experiments conducted:

• Experiment One: Investigating how TV affects Body Health (Obesity and Brain issues) he

This particular investigation was split into two sections. The first examination was designed to monitor the mental impacts of TV programs on school going kids. As mentioned above, the one hundred youngsters aged between 7 and 12 were selected from various random schools in the capital to take part in the experiment. They were subjected to watch four different TV programs, including Pokemon, Doraemon, and Ben Ten. Afterward, several things were monitored and evaluated, including the favorite programs, daily-hourly watching rates, the psychological effects, behavioral changes, accent changes, and violent characters (Habib & Soliman, 2015).

In the second part of the study, the kids were exposed to TV programs showing food advertisements, including TV adverts on fast foods such as happy meal and Kids' meal. The kids were then given snacks while watching the program after which their behavior and attitude towards the food was evaluated. Factors like kids response to diet and willingness to consume the meals were monitored on the TV watching. In another experiment, the children were given meals without the TV programs, and their reaction was also recorded. This behavior towards eating is often compared to the ability to develop diabetes and other lifestyle diseases.

• Experiment Two: Examining how TV Affects Behavior (sexual content and aggressiveness)

This experiment was as well divided into two sections. In the first part, the kids (the participants) were exposed to a twenty-minute of Superman and Batman movie series four times a week for two consecutive weeks. Afterward, their actions and aggressive behavior were monitored to evaluate the effect of the action-oriented TV program. In the second part of the experiment, the youngsters were allowed to watch romantic cartoon TV series, including Pokemon and Digimon, for four times in a span of two weeks also. These cartoon movies contain body-exposing content of both the male and sexual organs. After the two weeks, both sex groups were evaluated on their sexual behavior, especially their attraction to the opposite gender (Habib & Soliman, 2015).

• Experiment Three: Probing the best solutions to TV viewing (including monitoring and restrictions)

In this last experiment, the effects of control and restrictions were evaluated on all the aspects mentioned above. First, parents regulate particular TV programs like cartoons (example are indicated in experiments one and two) of all the one hundred children for over two weeks and their body reactions (obesity and brain issues) as well as behavioral changes (aggressiveness and sexual changes) evaluated. The outcome of control was then compared with the earlier results obtained in experiments one and two. Also, TV watching was completely restricted for the same period and the results compared to the ones obtained in experiments one and two.

Results

• Experiment One

In the first experiment, 60 percent of the minors preferred Ben Ten and more than 70 percent watch cartoons for between two and three hours each day. Also, 80 percent of the children are in one way or the other affected psychologically, and 60 percent behave in a different manner after watching cartoons and other TV programs. Also, more than 60 percent of the children change their accent and watch cartoon more than any other program. In the second part, about 70 percent of kids had increased rates of consuming their meals after watching the TV advertisements while a mere 30 percent ate their meals without the viewing the programs (Habib & Soliman, 2015).

• Experiment Two

In the second experiment, 70 percent of children exposed to the two violent movies (Batman and Superman) showed aggressive behaviors including the desire to fight others. Also, 60 percent of the kids exposed to sexually revealing content (Pokemon and Digimon) showed some sexual attraction to children of the opposite sex.

• Experiment Three

In the final test, monitoring was able to control 60 percent of TV watching behavior while restriction regulated 80 percent.

Discussion

From the results, it is evident that TV-watching impacts to a greater extent so many aspects of children's lifestyles and growth, including body health and behavior. In the first investigation, about 80 percent of kids watch TV for approximately two to three hours every day while 60 percent change their accent after viewing particular programs. Most importantly, about 70 percent consume their meals after watching food TV adverts. Also, in the second study, 70 percent of kids showed aggressive behavior after viewing Batman and Superman action series while 60 percent were attracted to children of opposite sex after being subjected to Pokemon and Digimon cartoon movies(Habib & Soliman, 2015).

The outcome of the experiments just indicates how effective TV can be in influencing the brain and reasoning of children. According to Gunter & McAleer, (1997), TV has more impact on the brain of kids because at early years of development children often seek fresh experiences. Ray & Jat (2010) think it explains why children will spend more time watching their favorite programs than perhaps doing their homework. Several factors play a central role in child brain growth. First, there exist strong ties between brain development and genetic composition (Thakkar, Garrison, & Christakis, (2006). However, the environment or surrounding setting plays a critical role in carving or molding how the brain functions. Secondly, imagination and thinking are some of the most decisive factors that influence how future actions can be predicted (Jusoff & Sahimi, 2009). Finally, early brain setting is essential to the mental growth of a kid as they help in predicting future actions.

Also, from the outcome of the investigation, monitoring (60 percent) and restriction (80 percent) are two critical methods that can help curb and regulate TV watching activities among the youth, especially school-going kids. As discussed in the literature review section, television content often exposes children to a vast pool of knowledge, including entertaining and educative programs. However, other programs are misleading and can be detrimental to the health and character of children (Richard et al., 2012). By controlling time spent by kids watching this TV shows, parents can achieve a lot in monitoring the behavior and health. For instance, parents can reduce the chances of bringing up uncouth, vulgar, and obese kids by controlling the types of programs they view (Brotherson, 2015). On the other hand, the restriction is the most the most efficient way of curbing or reducing the practice of TV viewing among kids. Just as mentioned above, the brain of children often responds to the surrounding. Thus, by completely removing the stimuli, parents and teachers can control the impacts of TV shows (Christakis et al., 2004).

Conclusion

In summary, it can be deduced that TV addiction is one of the most dangerous chronic diseases that is impacting the behavior and health of many children in the society. Even though it aids in providing education and entertainment, some TV programs are continually affecting the brain development of children. As seen in the results section, television watching changes the character and sexual desires of children. Besides, it can create aggressive and obese youngsters in the society. However, restriction and monitoring are the two effective ways of reducing the TV addiction among children.