Excessive Watching of Television - Thesis Example

Introduction: Visual media are an attraction for children, and they spend a lot of their free time watching television programs. This frequent and extended watching of television is believed to have an impact on them, and influences their behavior, attitudes, and values. In the United States of America there is growing concern on the content that children view, as well as the extended hours that children spend in front of the television (Alexander, A). Thesis statement: Excessive viewing of television has negative effects on children. Background: Television has become a inseparable part of our daily lives, just as many other products of the advances in science and technology, like the telephone and the fridge. The television is an audio-visual media through which we seek our requirements of entertainment and information. The fact that it is an audio-visual medium provided it with significance in many ways for children. It is a suitable means for education children, besides providing them with entertainment (The Good Things About Television). However, this attraction that children have for the television could lead to them to spending too much of their leisure time viewing television. Children in the United States of America spend a surprisingly large amount of time watching television. Analysis of national data indicates that the television viewing time in children below the age of six years, on an average is over an hour every day, and in adolescents the average television viewing time is as high as three and a half hours a day. There is cross-sectional evidence that excessive of television viewing has a negative effect on the viewer, irrespective of the age and ethnicity. Undesired behavior and unhealthy conditions result from excessive viewing of television. This has resulted in the American Academy of Pediatrics recommending that children below the age of two should not be allowed to view television, and the viewing time of children above that age should be restricted to less than two hour every day (Christakis, A.D., & Zimmerman, J.F., 2006). Benefits of Viewing Television: The development of satellite television with digital input has enhanced both the reach of television, as well as the quantity and quality of content of television programs that are viewed by children. This has enhanced the attraction that children have had for the television. It thus is a media that can be used to provide benefits for children and the benefits, and watching wholesome television can enhance the quality of life of children. Television provides the means of sharing experiences with children. It has the ability of creating absorbing details of way of lives in nearby and distant lands, making it a more real experience of the cultures of these lands. The television assists children in sharing these cultural experiences with other children. The time spent on watching television by a family together is time and experience shared together. It is quite often seen that the greatest period of time families spend together is during viewing of television. Sharing of time and emotions during a baseball game between father and children, or mother and children watching a hilarious movie are a theme that recurs in most families. The television offers means of enhancing learning skills, providing education input, and increasing interest in subject matters. The attraction to television that children have is the catalyst for these processes. Parents can encourage watching of television programs that enhance learning skills, and provide educational input, and the children would appreciate the change in media used for this purpose, and their attention would be there. The television program ‘Sesame Street’ is an example of this, where the children’s learning skills are enhanced. There is educational input, and all this is provided in a manner that keeps the attention of the children riveted on the subject matter, as it is presented in a manner entertaining to them. The television can also act as a catalyst to enhance the reading habit in children. Subject matters shown on television that catch the interest of the child can be followed up by reading books on the same subject, or by other works of the author responsible for the television program. The television acts as a medium that can be effectively used to teach children important values and lessons of life. The television provides the means to explore controversial issues in societies, with children in a manner that is not abrasive to them, and provides greater meaning to them. Controversial and sensitive issues do arise at the time of shared viewing of television between children and parents, either in the content of the program, or in the advertisements present, as part of the program. These issues can be brought up as a part of the usual discussions that occur during shared television viewing, providing children with the appropriate views on these controversial and sensitive issues, without them generating a feeling of intrusion into their decision making. This gentle approach available through television viewing offers an effective means of providing the broader perspective of the controversial and sensitive issues, allowing for a better value judgment, by them on the issues. News, current events and documentaries shown on television programs keep children abreast of what is happening around the world, as well as provides them with an understanding of the way of life in other places. This increases their general knowledge of the world that they live in, and also enhances their critical thinking of the social aspects of people and the communities that they live. This need not be restricted to human life and society alone, but can gradually spread into all life that exists on this planet, and the interaction of these lives with human life. In short these programs make a child a better-informed person, capable of thinking critically on all that happens around. The programs that can be watched on television are many providing for a wide range of subjects and topics. Thus the children are not restricted to value content either in entertainment, education, and the like available at local libraries or outlets. Such content when not available on television can be got on data recording devices, and viewed on the television. This makes the television a source for entertainment and education that is not easily exhausted (The Good Things About Television). Television is a mass media, and can be used to influence attitudes and values in several aspects on children. Mass media campaigns targeted at developing healthy behavior patterns, including non-use of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco can have a significant impact on the attitude and values that children give to unhealthy behavior patterns. However this is a double-edged sword, and the children can easily be influenced to unhealthy behavior by watching television programs that encourage or depict unhealthy behavior that the children find attractive, and hence are likely to follow. (MEDIA CAMPAIGN). In all the benefits examined in support of television viewing the content factors stands out, and that means for the benefits of television there are parental restrictions that come into play. These restrictions are not just based on the content only for in the examination of the benefits of television, there has been no suggestion that extensive viewing contributes to the benefits of television. This by itself suggests that the children should not get addicted to the viewing of television in their free time. Therefore the second control factor that needs to be a part of the television viewing by children is a control on the time of its use. It is from this perspective that the recommendation of not allowing very young children below the age of four from viewing television at all needs to be looked at. A study has suggested that this early exposure to television leads to resistance to parental control on television viewing at the later stage in life, when the child starts going to school Christakis, A.D., & Zimmerman, J.F., 2006). Moving back to the issue of parental control on content of television programs that children view, it is possible for parents to control the programs that children view, but not the advertisements that are part of the television program. It is here that the negative impact of television begins to creep in. Advertisements of food products meant for children target children’s programs, as means to get their message across. There is an impact of these advertisements or commercials on the eating behavior of children, and the resultant health condition. A study has shown that watching commercials on food products has led to increased unhealthy eating behavior in children like greater consumption of snacks, with the resultant health condition of obesity (Halford, J.C., et al., 2002). Thus even within the benefits of viewing of television there is an element of ill effects on children creeping in, and this gets enhanced, when the viewing of television of children is without any control on time, leading to excessive viewing of television. Negative Effects of Excessive Viewing of Television on Children: The primary negative effects on children due to excessive viewing of television include violent or aggressive behavior, substance use, sexual activity, obesity, and poor-body image, and decreased school performance. This is because excessive use of television has an amplified effect on the information gained on life and life styles, and different types of behavior. In a study conducted the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) was used to evaluate the impact of excessive viewing of television. The findings of the study confirmed that the primary negative effects of excessive viewing of television were social problems, delinquent behavior, aggressive behavior and externalization. These risks for children were the outcome of watching television for period of two hours every day, and the risk factors increased with enhanced television viewing time (Ozmert, E., Toyran, M., & Yurdakok, A., 2002). The national average of viewing time of television by adolescents is nearly double this at three and half hours every day (Christakis, A.D., & Zimmerman, J.F., 2006). The intensity of the negative effects of excessive viewing of television by children can be gauged from the finding that negative effects of television on children are clearly visible over a viewing time of two hours a day with the impact of the negative effects rising with an increased viewing time of television for children. The enormity of the ill effects of television become more clear, when each of the negative effects are examined in greater detail, and other possible effects on children, as result of excessive viewing of television are taken in to consideration. Obesity as a Negative Effect of Excessive viewing of Television: Obesity is one of the most common negative effects of television viewing. This comes as a result of two factors. Excessive viewing of television leads to unhealthy food habits, as the combined result of the affect of commercials on television programs that promote food products targeted at youngsters, and the consumption of these food products like snacks, while watching television or otherwise (Halford, J.C., et al., 2002). When excessive viewing of television intrudes into meal times the adverse effect of television viewing is even more intense. A study has found that there is an increased change from healthy foods to unhealthy foods in children, where the viewing of foods intrudes into mealtimes. The study has shown that the consumption of healthy foods like fruits and vegetables declines, while the consumption of unhealthy foods like pizzas, snacks foods, and sodas increase in these children (Coon, K.A., et al., 2001). Excessive television viewing also leads to physical inactivity. More free time is spent on the sedentary watching of television in place of the healthy physical activities. (Barclay, L., 2006). The extent of sedentary life styles of children is as high as 31% percent, as a result of excessive viewing of television. No ethnic group can be considered free from this effect in children, who spend a lot of time watching television. By sedentary life styles, these children avoid the moderate level of exercise and physical activity that is required by a child for growing up as a healthy individual. These sedentary life styles make these children face enhanced risks of sedentary life style diseases as adults. The obesity and unhealthy food habits make them prime targets for life style diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure and coronary artery diseases, in their later life as adults (Lowry, R., et al., 2002). In a study conducted in New Zealand children who watched television excessively demonstrated a higher incidence of increased body mass index, higher serum cholesterol, lower cardio-pulmonary, and higher risk of cigarette smoking as adults, even after adjusting for the impact of television viewing, in the latter stages of life. This was the consequence of their unhealthy eating habits, sedentary life styles, and unhealthy behavior patterns, as children, due to the excessive watching of television. (Ludwig, D.S., & Gortmaker, L.S., 2004). Poor Performance at School as a Negative Effect of Excessive Viewing of Television: Spending of too much time watching television results in low performance in many of these children, and this has been the experience at most schools. There are several reasons that have been attributed to this low performance at schools. The excess time that is spent on watching television is at the expense of time spent on homework and creative activity. The less time available for study and creative activities is reflected in the poor performance at schools. In the case where the student is obese an added problem is that there is a tendency to be lazy, and even the limited time available for study may not be utilized for study purposes, and instead spent lazing around. The performance of such students is often dismally low (Vandewater, E.A., et al., 2006). Another factor that affects the performance of children, due to excessive watching of television is that they spend less time sleeping, and deprive themselves of the required sleep in their childhood. Such children find it difficult to concentrate at school, as they are likely to be drowsy. The lack of attentiveness during the knowledge and skill providing time at school makes them deficient in adequate knowledge and skill levels required by them, and this is reflected in their poor performance at schools. The problem with this low performance is that it makes them less competitive in a world that is becoming more competitive, and they lose opportunities to enhance their knowledge and skill levels, thus depriving themselves of their right place, when they start their productive phase. This leads to frustration at the workplace. Even more alarming is the possibility of these children, as a result of their repeated poor performance, just stopping to try to do better, because of the loss of self-belief. This could lead to depression (Van den Bulck, J., 2004). Anti-Social Behavior Patterns as a Negative Effect of Excessive Viewing of Television: Excessive television viewing in children has been found to cause aggressive behavior and violence in these children. This is a result of watching television programs that depict violence, child abuse, especially emotional abuse. Television viewing has been known to have an impact on the behavioral attitudes of children. This aggressive and violent behavior of such children tends to make other children keep away from them, and the social contacts of such children remain among the group that tends to violence, or they remain in isolation, gradually moving away from social mixing that would make them acceptable in their age group (Sonquil, S.Y., et al., 2002). Excessive viewing of television leads to unhealthy habits like substance use and cigarette smoking, as their behavior towards these activities is influenced by what they watch on television. These unhealthy habits, besides damaging their health at a young age, are responsible for addiction, and other unsocial activities to sustain the habit. Juvenile delinquency is high in those children that are addicted to substance abuse, as they need money to support the habit. They have not yet reached the earning age, and have to resort to unsocial and illegal activities to get money to sustain the habit (Ozmert, E., Toyran, M., & Yurdakok, A., 2002) Conclusion: Television viewing by children has its benefit, but these benefits are derived only when there is control both on the content, as well as the time that television is viewed. Children watching television excessively are prone to many ill effects. These negative effects have an impact on them in their childhood and childhood activities, and are quite likely to have a negative impact on their later life as adults. Therefore excessive viewing of television has negative effects on children and the time children watch television needs to be controlled. Literary References Alexander, A. CHILDREN AND TELEVISION. Retrieved October 15, 2006, from The Museum of Broadcast Corporation Website: http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/C/htmlC/childrenand/childrenand.htm Barclay, L. (2006). Combining Reward With Exercise Helps Decrease TV Viewing Time in Obese Children. Retrieved October 15, 2006, from Medscape Medical News. Medscape Today Website: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/541392 Christakis, A.D., & Zimmerman, J.F. (2006). Early Television Viewing Is Associated With Protesting Turning Off the Television at Age 6. Retrieved October 15, 2006, from Medscape General Medicine. Medscape Today Website: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/531503 Coon, K.A., et al. (2001). Relationships between use of television during meals and children's food consumption patterns. Pediatrics, 107(1), E7. Halford, J.C., et al. (2002). Factors that affect television viewing time in preschool and primary schoolchildren. Pediatrics International, 44(6), 622-627. Lowry, R., et al. (2002). Television viewing and its associations with overweight, sedentary lifestyle, and insufficient consumption of fruits and vegetables among US high school students: differences by race, ethnicity, and gender. Journal of school health, 72(10), 413-421. Ludwig, D.S., & Gortmaker, L.S. (2004). Programming obesity in childhood. The Lancet, 364(9430), 226-227. MEDIA CAMPAIGN. Retrieved October 15, 2006, from OFFICE OF NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY Website: http://www.mediacampaign.org/publications/primetime/tv_rationale.html Ozmert, E., Toyran, M., & Yurdakok, A. (2002). Behavioral correlates of television viewing in primary school children evaluated by the child behavior checklist. Archives of pediatrics & adolescent medicine. 156(9), 910-914. Sonquil, S.Y., et al. (2002). Factors that affect television viewing time in preschool and primary schoolchildren. Pediatrics international, 44(6), 622-627. The Good Things About Television. Retrieved October 15, 2006, from MEDIA AWARENESS NETWORK Website: http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/parents/television/good_things_tv.cfm Van den Bulck, J. (2004). Television viewing, computer game playing, and Internet use and self-reported time to bed and time out of bed in secondary-school children. Sleep, 27(1), 101-104. Vandewater, E.A., et al. (2006). Time well spent? Relating television use to children's free-time activities. Pediatrics, 117(2), e181-191. Read More