I.Introduction
Children today are being brought into a word that is saturated in media and technology in nearly every aspect of their life. From television to tablets, children from infancy are consumers of media and technology like never before. Though there are many benefits to such advances in society, there are concerning impacts on infants and young children that are not obvious to many parents and caregivers. Most are aware of the negative stigma associated with media and technology on young children, but do not have an understanding of the specific effects that are involved with media consumption in this era. Throughout this project, I would like to expand upon these impacts in order to create more awareness of the impacts of media
…show more content…
This class amplified my writing flexibility. I learned how to gear my writing to a specific audience using different platforms. This skill will be an asset in my project because it will enable me to communicate effectively through a blog platform to my intended audience. Without this course, I would not be as prepared to manipulate my writing to fit the specifics of the project.
Media Criticism. This course has played a large role in making me aware of the vast impacts of media in society. I have learned how to analyze the mediated messages and extract meaning from them. This will be an extremely important asset to my project because it will allow me to analyze and critique media that directly targets the children of the age group I am focusing on.
Introduction to Advertising. One of the matters I am focusing on in this project is childhood consumerism. This course has prepared me to look at how advertising and marketing have an impact on the specific target market of young children. Being able to analyze advertisements and marketing material will allow me to illustrate the connections between media, technology and
…show more content…
Because of this, it is important to explore how this is going to influence their growth and development through their early years. Not only parents and caregivers, but society as a whole should understand the implications related to media and technology exposure to young children, as they are going to be active members in society in the future.
There are obvious benefits of technology and media for adults, teenagers and older kids. Communication, convenience, learning and information sharing are just a few aspects of life that have been improved from advances in this field. But when looking at who predominantly takes advantage of these benefits, children in their early years often fall short (with the exception of health and medical advances). In fact, sufficient research shows many negative impacts associated with media and technology for very young
It contains dissatisfaction that leads to over-consumption. Children are particularly vulnerable to this sort of manipulation, and the American Psychological Association article, “Youth Oriented Advertising” reveals the facts upon the statistics on consumers in the food industry. The relationship that encourages young children to adapt towards food marketing schemes, makes them more vulnerable to other schemes, such as, advertising towards clothing, toys and cars. Article writer of “The relationship between cartoon trade character recognition and attitude toward product category in young children”, Richard Mizerski, discusses a sample that was given to children ages three to six years old, about how advertising affects young children that are attracted to certain objects or products on the market. During this past decade, advertising companies have gone out of their way just to get the new scoop or trend children are into, gathering information and distributing it to other companies.
The effect of the media on young children is especially salient. Young children often learn how to act and behave from what they observe at home, from the adults and older peers they come in contact with, and from what they see on television.
"Impact of Media Use on Children and Youth." National Center for Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of Medicine, May 2003. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. .
Woodard, E.H. & Gridina, N. “Media in the Home 2000, The fifth annual survey of parents and children.” The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, PA. Feb 2001. 20 Mar 2008 .
Many people have a wide range of opinions on whether technology is having a positive influence on our children or a negative, there is a vast amount of evidence to support both of these arguments. Technology can refer to so many things, but there are three main parts of technology that have the greatest effect on our children: video games, television/media, and computers. The modern technologies we have today are so powerful because they attract our genetic biases, that the human brain has a tremendous love for visually presented information. Video games, television, movies and computer programs are all very visually oriented and therefore they attract and keep the attention of children easily. By far the largest concern of technology today is video games.
“There are twelve billion dollars spent annually on ads directed at children” (Dittmann, 2004). These advertisements target young, impressionable minds, capture the attention of the child and imprint an ideal or message. While watching advertisements, a child develops a like or dislike for an activity or product. The strength of the desire is proportional to exposure. Desire creates action and action creates sales. I observed this principle with a sibling, my younger brother Eron. When a General Electric commercial came on television he, would turn and be mystified by the music and dancing of the actors. Around the age of eight, he expressed a very strong opinion that General Electric products are superior to other products. At this stage in his development, he did not have the cognitive ability to think abstractly to weigh all of the aspects associated with what makes a product of quality.
Across America in homes, schools, and businesses, sits advertisers' mass marketing tool, the television, usurping freedoms from children and their parents and changing American culture. Virtually an entire nation has surrendered itself wholesale to a medium for selling. Advertisers, within the constraints of the law, use their thirty-second commercials to target America's youth to be the decision-makers, convincing their parents to buy the advertised toys, foods, drinks, clothes, and other products. Inherent in this targeting, especially of the very young, are the advertisers; fostering the youth's loyalty to brands, creating among the children a loss of individuality and self-sufficiency, denying them the ability to explore and create but instead often encouraging poor health habits. The children demanding advertiser's products are influencing economic hardships in many families today. These children, targeted by advertisers, are so vulnerable to trickery, are so mentally and emotionally unable to understand reality because they lack the cognitive reasoning skills needed to be skeptical of advertisements. Children spend thousands of hours captivated by various advertising tactics and do not understand their subtleties.
Negative Effects of Technology on Children? Personal. Psu. 21 March 2010. Web.
..., DF (2010). Generation M2: Media in the lives of 8-18 year olds. Merlo Park CA: Henry J Kaiser Foundation
There has been a long lasting debate in the resent years on whether or not technology has a positive or negative impact on today’s kids. As the years move on, the negative effects have begun to outnumber the positive. The generations previous spent their childhood making forts, fishing, and using their imaginations, contrary to today’s generations who spend their free time texting, playing video games, and watching videos. Damaging effects such as decreases in school performances, addiction to electronics, and lack of brain development have all been linked to the electronic media stimulation. In order to prevent the future generation from following in the current generations footsteps, one must full comprehend just how much technology impacts
Pitman, S. (2008, August). The impact of media technologies on child development and wellbeing. Retrieved from http://www.ozchild.org.au/userfiles/docs/ozchild/research-papers/ImpactOfElectronicMedia.pdf
Children can be influenced and impacted in many ways whether it is from their parents, peers, and even strangers. One thing many people don’t realize is that many children, nowadays, are actually being influenced by the media, meaning they are being affected by different media sources, such as television and the internet. The question is whether the sources of media, television and the internet has a positive effect or a negative effect on children, and which source of media has a bigger effect.
Young children today have become the primary focus of marketing flurry, with targets for everything from music, and health. There is no doubt that marketers have their sights on kids because they are increasing in buying power. Perhaps the significant reasons marketers target young kids is because of the money they spend, the influence they have on the parents spending, and the money they will spend in future. Children spend yet there are serious social concerns that come with marketing to children. Young children are not able to fully understand the commercial messages.
Families nowadays leave their children without any observation or even thinking about what they are doing while using the internet connections for a long time. Children nowadays grow in a world exposed to media use. It was found that children aged 8 to 18 years had an average media usage time of 7 hours and 38 minutes daily. The average adolescent spends one-third of every day with some form of electronic media. This increased exposure to the media has deep effects on the development and functioning of children and teenagers today. It has been found that media have a negative effect on the physical, mentally, psychological and social development of
If one asked “What is media literacy?” a majority of people would be puzzled. Some would say that it is the ‘written’ part of media that is not usually seen or a written layout of how media should be produced. The bulk of people would say they have no idea what media literacy is. People in today’s society should be informed about media literacy. Society should be informed of what media literacy exactly is and how it applies to the field of communications.