Child Watch TV is good or not - Essay Example

Child Watch TV is good or not Introduction Today television has become an important part of most the children's lives. Studies show that children around the world spend their maximum time watching television than they do in any other activity with an exception in the time of sleeping. The question here is whether watching TV is good for children or not. There is no doubt that TV can be an excellent educator and entertainer. But despite its advantages, too much television can be detrimental. For instance, it can be a problem for health, it can have tremendous impact on studies and it can also have psychological impact.

Several researches around the world has shown that on an average children who consistently spend more than 4 hours per day watching TV are more likely to be overweight. In earlier days before the television, children played outdoors more and used their minds to be more creative. Today, obesity is a major problem among children and health experts point out that television plays a major role in this. Excessive television viewing promotes inactivity and when it is combined with frequent snaking it leads to obesity. In addition, children are more and more influenced by advertisement and through television they're also bombarded with messages that encourage them to eat unhealthy foods such as potato chips and empty-calorie soft drinks that often become preferred snack foods.

There is no doubt that television has its good side. It can be both entertaining as well as educational. It gives good opportunity for children to learn more about different cultures, and gain exposure to ideas they may never encounter in their own community.Besides, it also gives them a chance to see different places and learn about various aspects on culture in different parts of the world. However, if we think of a situation where there was no television, children who have an interest to learn about these aspects could use books and other sources to know about these things. This will not only improve their reading habit but also have an impact on their personal development. Hence, it can be said that television is not the only tool for a child to learn about various aspects of life and it cannot be considered as inevitable.

Television can be influential in developing value systems and shaping behavior among children. Unfortunately, much of today's television programming is violent. Children concur some of the negative moral influences through television such as media violence, portrayals of sexual exploitation and attitudes, vulgarity and rudeness, intense and disturbing imagery. They also see alcoholism, drug abuse, and other kinds of disturbing activities in television. When children watch these programs with violence in the absence of supervision from their parents, they will lack proper guidance. Since in many houses, both parents are working, children have more unsupervised time of watching television. In such cases, parents will not even be able to keep a track on the channels that children will watch in their absence. Many times such viewing of television may spoil the behavior and children may get into life threatening habits.
It is essential for the parents to inculcate in their children the habit of watching television in a specific time and should not get on the way of studies. While television violence is not the only cause of aggressive or violent behavior, parents and researchers believe that it is clearly a significant factor. It is important to reduce the time children watch television. Regardless of the content, television watching should be moderated because it decreases time spent on more beneficial activities such as reading, playing with friends, and developing hobbies. These are very essential for their overall development.

In conclusion, when we compare the positive and negative sides of television and its impact on children, it can be pointed out that television has more probability to have negative influence on children than positive ones. In my opinion, television cannot be considered as an inevitable item. The knowledge that is gained from television can also be gained from books. However, if television is watched, it should be allowed only for a limited time and also under the supervision of parents or elders. Excessive television is definitely going to harm children. Read More