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Effects of technology on adolescents
Effects of technology on adolescents
Effects of technology on adolescents
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A boy sits at home waiting for his big brother to come home from school. He hears the door shut and a backpack fall to the ground. The boy looks at the clock and sees that it’s around 3:20, so his older brother should be home from school by now. The boy goes into the living room where he sees his brother’s eyes fixated on the TV. The boy asks his brother if he wanted to play some catch outside, “No thanks, I’m fine.” What was odd was that his older brother loved to play catch with him. “How about we shoot some hoops?” His brother replies, “No, maybe some other time.” As he says this his little brother notices that his eyes are glued to the TV screen. Is television so addictive that it makes everything else look unattractive? According to author Marie Winn television is considered a “plug-in drug.” Although watching excessive television is not as serious as drugs or alcohol in the sense of the lethalness to the human body, TV can have many effects in and of itself. According to various authors, television has made our reality seem nothing more than second best and make children become more violent.
First, one can say that television has made everyday reality seem nothing more than second best. Out in the “real world” emotions such as anxiety, hopelessness, stress, and countless others consume our minds. Who would want to constantly be surrounded by any of those problems? For example, let’s say you just came home from a hard day of work, so why not flip the television on and not worry about any of those problems? Winn states that, “The television experience allows the participant to blot out the real world and enter into a pleasurable and passive mental state” (Winn 21). For some people in modern society life without a televisi...
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...n Drug: Television, Children & the Family. , NY: Viking Penguin.
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In “The Plug-in Drug”, author Marie Winn attempts to reason with the reader to persuade them that watching television --- even “good” programs --- is harmful to children. She also uses counter arguments debunk current beliefs about children and television.
In the world today watching television is so addictive that everything else looks unattractive. The author argues that television is not lethal as drugs and alcohol but it can have many effects such as children getting more violent and reality seem second best. Every person lives are filled with emotions including anxiety, depression, and stress so after long hard work day the best medicine is to turn the television on and not to worry about anything. For example, I usually drive from site to site to take care of business. So when I return home from work I will sit on my couch and turn the television on and flick the channel until I fall to sleep. As Marie Winn describes, "the television experience allows the participant to blot out the real world and e...
In an article ' The Plug-In Drug ' the author Marie Winn discusses the bad influence of television on today's society. Television is a ' drug ' that interfere with family ritual, destroys human relationships and undermines the family.
Most people are emotionally and physically controlled in a virtual world. Today, us Americans probably watch up to 4.3 hours of television a day. Media analyst Neil Postman, has written a book criticizing television as a whole. In the book, Amusing Ourselves To Death, Neil Postman’s son reflected on his father’s book how “tv is turning all public life (education, religion, politics, journalism) into entertainment”. We look into this world as what we see on TV must be always true and letting it take over our daily lives. I will be bringing in quotes from Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves To Death on how this media is draining our minds can cause problems and where we can find a simple balance.
In a Class Dismissed when the narrator says,” because we have seen television as just entertainment, we readily disregard its impact on our thinking”. When I heard that statement, I thought to myself that our perceptions of things are based upon what we see on TV, although I do view TV as entertainment as well. However, I never paid attention to how TV impacted my thoughts until viewing and reading in the material in this class. Because of some of the things that we studied and the familiar shows that we talked about I understand and noticed small things in TV shows and ad
Marie Winn, in her essay “Television: The Plug-In Drug,” argues the negative influences of television that affects individuals and families (438-46).
Since its invention, television has been one of the most influential forms of media to date. As TV sets grew in popularity and became a standard household item, they also became a learning tool for audiences as well. To some extent, television provides an essential framework of knowledge, and our view of society and reality, in general, is shaped by the perceptions of what and even who we watch. The issue with this is that the lines between “reality television” and actual reality become blurred, and it becomes increasingly difficult to make distinctions between both. Throughout this paper, we will examine the extent to which media represents the world in which we live.
In general, the effects of television and drugs cannot be compared as equivalents; nevertheless, their study is worth of consideration. They are still two mysteries to be solved: why people spend so many hours in front of a TV set instead of doing something proactive and why people seeks refuge in drugs. We may not know all of the answers but we know all the of questions. While we walk towards the light hoping to find the answers to these mysteries, there are still many things to be done. In the meanwhile, one thing must remain in our minds: we will still face many obstacles together as society, with or without television and drugs.
White, A. V. (2006). Television Harms Children. Opposing Viewpoints. Television. San Diego: Greenhaven Press. (Reprinted from Mothering, 2001, 70)
The staggering amount that we waste our day watching TV for more hours than we should. There are days where I tell myself I’m going to leave my apartment to do something active, but most of the time that never happens because of how distracted I get from the TV. My little TV time ends up being more than expected in a matter of seconds without even realizing. Unproductiveness is a very important trait into becoming unhealthy, it can lead to something even more serious, like obesity. In Sach’s essay, he explains how there are at least two-thirds of the population in America whom are obese and I agree that TV can be one of its leading factors. The Nurses Healthy Study followed over 50,000 women for six years and notice that for every two hours of TV spent a day increased their chances of being obese by 23% (Obesity Prevention Source). As it is, we can watch TV for numerous amount of hours without even noticing that the time has passed by, so could you imagine how much percentage has increased now?
Shapiro,M., & Lang, A. (1991).Making television reality: Unconscious processes in the construction of social reality. Communication Research, 18, 685–705. doi: 10.1177=009365091018005007
Vande Berg, L.R., Wenner, L.A., & Gronbeck, B. E. (1998). Critical Approaches to Television. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Childhood overexposure to television can cause a detrimental effect on reading skills and behavior. Bar-on (2000) states, “The exposure of American children and adolescents to television continues to exceed the time they spend in the classroom: 15,000 hours versus 12,000 hours by the time they graduate.” (p. 289) Children are more vulnerable than adults, to the influences of the behaviors that they view. The pediatrics association estimates that for every hour a child under two spends in front of a screen, he or she spends about fifty minutes less interacting with a parent, and about ten percent less time in creative play. (Carey, 2011, p. 2) Although there have been some studies that found some prosocial and educational benefits, significant research has shown there are a lot more negative effects. (Bar-on, 2000, p. 289) This paper will describe in detail the effects that can be caused from too much television.
One of the physiological effects of watching television in excessive amounts is eye-strain. It is true that there are specifications for watching television; television should be 5 m. away from the eye, the room should be adequately lit, television should be placed at the same height with our eyes, etc. However, these do not prevent our eyes from getting tired if we keep watching television for a long time. Another effect is obesity, which is widely observed in people who like watching television and eating snacks everyday (there is even a term “television snacks” to refer to fast food that is suitable for eating in front of the television). television is such a powerful machine that people cannot get away from it – it is addictive. Apart from the physiological effects, television also causes psychological effects. One is a result of being exposed to