Effects of Television on Today's Youth

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"Television viewing is a major activity and influence on children and adolescents. Children in the United States watch an average of three to four hours of television a day. By the time of high school graduation, they will have spent more time watching television than they have in the classroom. While television can entertain, inform, and keep our children company, it may also influence them in undesirable ways." (AACAP, 2001, p. 1)

Even though parents are conscious that the media can affect their children, nearly all of them don't realize how severe it is actually becoming. While television has developed and is now one of our most valuable ways of communication, it also has horrible consequences of being able to negatively affect and corrupt people. This will examine both sides of this problem, focusing on the effects of a particular mass medium, television, on a particular group of society, children. It will also examine studies that try to show both the positive and negative affects on children.

This website will also illustrate the necessity of parents to be there for their children and for teachers to play a pivotal role in helping children separate fact from fiction during television viewing.

Television is by far the most popular and most powerful medium in which children are exposed. It probably could be argued that television is more influential than parents are to children, however all television does not have to have negative effects on children. Many programs do have positive themes behind them. A study by Aletha C. Huston and John C. Wright (1998) examined the studies portrayed television as having negative effects on children, and proved that most of these studies are faulty. One study that is often brought ...

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...gers. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 11(1), 28-39.

Huston, A.C. (1998). Television and the Informational and Educational Needs of Children. Annals of the American Academy of Political & Social Science, 557, 9-23.

Kent, D. & Moy, S. (1999). How much is too much? Parenting, 13, 1-3.

Nathanson, A.I. (1999). Identifying and Explaining the Relationship between Parental Mediation and Children's Aggression. Communication Research, 26(2), 124-143.

Scully, S. (1993, August). V Blocker is Easy Chip Shot Away. Broadcasting & Cable, 46.

Steinberg, S.R., & Kincheloe, J.L. (1997). Kinderculture. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Strasburger, V.C. & Donnerstein, E. (1999). Children, adolescents, and the media: Issues and solutions. American Academy of Pediatrics, 103, 1-15.

Zuckerman, M.B. (1996, August). The Victims of TV Violence. U.S. News & World Report, 64.

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