Turn off the TV Promote Literacy!
The amount of time American preschool children spend watching television can have harmful implications on their academic and overall development. Children spending more than an hour a day watching television do not reap the benefits gained from spending quality time exploring the world around them, playing with others, and interacting with family, all, which promote learning experiences as well as stimulate their physical and social development. A child develops their language skills through listening and communicating in the context of real life situations. Children who spend time watching television, instead of engaging in creative play or learning activities, do not exercise initiative, experience intellectual
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Children learn to think, feel, and react according to the visual images they see in a virtual world. Television may hinder their ability to interact and communicate in the reality of their environment. School age children, who watch more than an hour or two of television, tend to do less homework and have poor listening and concentration skills. Preschool children who view up to two hours a day of entertainment shows, may have lower reading and language aptitudes, and are less likely to read books and other print media. Reading books not only reveals a world of knowledge to children; it also exposes them to fifty percent more vocabulary words prime time television. Children’s author Dr. Seuss once wrote, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn the more places you'll go.” In conclusion, television can deprive children of real life experiences and human interaction necessary for them to develop their socialization skills and emotional intelligence. God reminds that if we “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old, he will not depart from it (Proverbs 22:6, English Standard
Imagination does not always involve dealing with realistic feelings or reading books and having to understand ideas in an intellectual way. Imagination does not need to be taken seriously; intelligence, on the other hand, should be taken seriously. Giving a child a book will test his reading and literacy skills. Putting a child in front of a 20/20 broadcast will confuse him. Reading books are meant for learning, not to expand one’s imagination. Children are not supposed to believe that television and video games are bad for them when this addictive hobby only makes them happy. It is only an excessive amount of television entertainment that will truly damage a child’s intellect. Adults, however, understand both how to read and the difference between reality and fantasy worlds and the effects television has on their intelligence.
In “Television Harms Children”, Ann Vorisek White claims that the intellectual and cognitive development of children who frequently watch television is threatened. To support this claim, she points to the findings that “the more television children watch, the weaker their language skills and imaginations” (White, 2006). Before the brain fully matures around age 12, it is in the stage of rapid development. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) “recommends that children under the age of two not watch TV or videos, and that older children watch only one to two hours per day of nonviolent, educational TV” (White, 2006). A study from the AAP (as cited in White, 2006) found that the average American child watches four hours of television every day. Considering "expression and reasoning are not automatic" abilities, young children who routinely watch television eventually become "passive and nonverbal" to stimuli in their environment (White, 2006). Since the normality of curiosity and imaginations of young children are the foundation of how they learn, remaining passive for extended periods of time affects their intellectual and moral development.
Clifford, Brian R., Barrie Gunter, and Jill L. McAleer. Television and Children: Program Evaluation, Comprehension, and Impact. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1995. Print.
Television has become a big part in children’s day-to-day lives especially in the 20th century. Children in this century rely on television to keep them entertained and educated instead of entertaining and educating themselves by participating in activities, which will teach them a lot more in life then the actual television. There is no doubt that children are most easily influenced by television because of the different content that they watch as well as the amount of time consumed watching TV. The television does have an emotional and intellectual development on children but this all depends on the content that they’re watching and the way that they absorb the information that the show is trying to send out. Different programs will portray
His strong resolution of never being poor again and intense yearning to achieve his goals
Today’s youth are spending more time indoors in front of a television than they do outside playing, which has been reported in studies to have negative effects on children; My early childhood education teachers have taught me that a brain/body in motion helps the child to gain fine motor, gross motor, cognitive and language skills. Bly cities the National Institute of Mental Health which found that “more skill and concentration was needed to eat a meal than to watch television, and how the constant watching left people passive yet tense, and unable to concentrate” (page 5). In my experience I came across a parent who was set in her ways; she believes that television education is more beneficial for a child than to have a child sit in a classroom learning environment. I asked her why she said “television gives her child a quieter atmosphere to learn in”. She then got upset when it was time for me to do child assessment on her child. She was embarrassed. She couldn’t understand why her child was so far behind the other children. She asked me what the difference was; why was her child not able to keep up. She became confused. I myself thought shows’ like “Sesame Street” were educational but I never thought it could replace school. I thought that it aided and had a positive effect. I never took the time to realize what Bly meant when he said “the show’s producers have violated the natural slowness in which
Television was an invention designed to entertain and inform. Created in the 1920s by John Logie Baird, TV has become an indispensable piece of furniture in most American dwellings. Every child, at least once in their lives have heard their mothers tell them that spending long periods of time in front of a screen will damage their brain. Two opposite arguments question all mothers’ hypothesis. Steven Johnson in “Watching TV Makes You Smarter” claims that over the years TV has become more complex. He considers that this complexity forces the brain to work. Dana Stevens in “Thinking Outside the Idiot Box” argues that there are many cons in the issue and that watching TV does not make anybody smarter. Instead,
Undoubtedly, educational programming, such as Sesame Street, has played a significant role in educating children in a fun and interactive way. “Educational television has proved an important tool in strengthening the preschool ski...
Thakkar, R. R., Garrison, M. M., & Christakis, D. A. (2006). A systematic review for the effects of television viewing by infants and preschoolers. Pediatrics, 118(5), 2025-2031. Retrieved April 22, 2014, from http://dx.doi.org/10.1542/peds.2006-1307
Television is a distraction for children and can hurt their cognitive abilities if they watch too much because it is non interactive. In the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity Helena Duch and colleagues mentioned that the American Academy of Pediatrics advises, “parents avoid exposing children 2 and under to screen media, a nationally representative survey found that 68% of children under the age of 2 use screen media in a typical day, and that average screen time was 2.05 hours per day” (Dutch et al 2). Children live in a world full of screens, ranging from iPhones, TVs, to tablets and computers. Drastic brain development occurs during the ages of 1-3 and exposing them to too much screen time of any kind can have negative effects on them (Hopkins 27). Putting them in front of a screen also steals away from times they could be talking, playing, and interacting with their surroundings. Pediatrician Dr. Michael Rich claims that shows d...
In Steven Johnson's article "Watching TV Makes You Smarter" he discusses the intellectual merits of television programs. The essence of Johnson's argument is that the complexity of certain current shows can get one to think at a higher cognitive level, and that shows have become more "cognitively demanding"of their viewers over the past few decades. Johnson's argument, that is in favor of watching quality television and the benefits that one can get from it, is reinforced by some good points the author makes. Johnson is effective in his argument and was very convincing. Viewing certain television programs can in fact benefit one's cognitive capacities, especially in children.
How TV Affects your Child? Kids Health. October 2011. Web. The Web.
Without a doubt, television is the central and principal form of communication in many people’s lives. This form is most often exposed to a child who instantly becomes accustomed to its presence. Children are televisions largest audience, as Morris shows, “Children aged two to five look at the TV tube on an average of 28.4 hours a week; those between the ages of six and eleven average 23.6 hours a week”. Television has played an important role in many children’s lives and its viewing has been a favorite activity for many of them. The effects of television on children have been disputed. Some people have said that viewing time has a negative impact on children. Other people, however, feel that the early educational television productions for children help tehm learn.
First, children who normally watch TV are more likely to have delayed brain development. For example, by constantly watching TV, children will be lack of natural skill exploring such as language development on learning and attention. According to Mary L. Courage, who is a researcher professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland, “Exposure to the unnaturally fast pace of sound and image change in video material during this sensitive period might alter synaptic connections in the neural networks underlying attention and shorten the infant’s attention span” (73). Basically, she is saying that many children started at...
Benefits of watching television at the young age would be that children’s social skill, emotional skill and creativity can be improved by watching the talk shows; it is proved by a study. For example, Children can learn how to communicate with other people and how to react properly when they are asked to response. In addition, TV shows such as C.S.I Miami, Criminal Minds and Bones can teach children how to think logically and stragically. Although books can transfer the knowledge to the young generations, but it has limitations that certain facial expressions and body languages cannot be transferred by few words. Furthermore, the beautiful images of the nature on the tv screen can let the children to take a long travel from their home to the deep in the ocean, top of Mt.Everest or middle of Sahara the dessert.