Average Child Watches Four Hours Of Television example essay topic

"Sit Too Close To That Thing!" Since its advent in the middle of the century, television has been watched as much by children as by adults. According to the New York University Child Study Center, the average child watches four hours of television each day, and according to The Guardian, 86% of children under 6 watch 6 hours a day or more. That's a fourth of their lives, and almost half of their waking lives. Naturally, with those type of statistics available, some attention has been given to the effects of all that TV, and the normal viewpoint held is that television has an overall negative effect on kids. I believe that contrary to popular opinion, television has more positive long-term effects on children than it does negative ones.

In her article, "Television in the Lives of Children", Cindy Scheide says, "In general, the effects of television on viewers can be divided into two different types: 1) direct effects due to the content of what is seen (in the programs or commercials); and 2) indirect effects due to the activity of watching TV, regardless of what is being watched". When discussing the content to which kids are exposed by watching TV, one cannot just take into account the content of children's programming, because most kids have access to and watch more channels than those which are intended for the younger demographic. And because so much adult-geared television contains violence, gratuitous sex, and obscenity, it seems natural to assume that watching such television is bad for kids. But examine the issue further: the claim being made by many is that kids are so overexposed to adult issues like those listed above that they become jaded, and extreme violence doesn't seem as frightening, sexual promiscuity as uncommon, and foul language as unacceptable. Well, I hate to break it to you concerned parents, but sheltering your kids from fictional programs involving violence, sex, and swearing will only delay the shock received when the inevitable realization that a plethora of such things exist in the real world is made. With the amount of crime, dishonesty, and selfishness that prevails among the majority of human behavior in society as it is in the 21st century, we all have to become jaded eventually, otherwise we'd draw the blinds, lock the door, and never leave the house.

Pretend for a moment that we have a child named Billy, and his parents have successfully managed to limit his television viewing to programs which are intended for children. Start with cartoons: many people have made the claim that cartoons are just as violent as other programs designed for adults, but that the violence is disguised because it's presented in a completely unrealistic and not graphic manner. Billy is watching a children's cartoon in which a character is hit over the head with a mallet and sees stars and tiny birds. Billy responds to the obvious slapstick appeal by laughing, but doesn't think twice about how violent the act depicted really is.

People might say that such abundant, inconsequential violence is leading kids to think that violence isn't a serious issue, but view the argument from the opposite side: children, even especially young children, don't link real-life violence with cartoon violence simply because of the fact that it's so abundant and inconsequential. Billy has been hit on the head before, and knows that a hearty smack to the skull yields more suffering than the little birdies and stars. Kids have had enough skinned knees to understand the concept of pain. Obviously, it's not reasonable to assume that all kids will, without exception, brush off cartoon violence as clear-cut fiction, but provided there is some amount of parental guidance and reinforcement, cartoons simply help illustrate the difference between television violence and real-life violence.

Children learn the distinction quickly, and it's knowledge of that distinction which prevents kids from becoming little mallet-welding soldiers of pain. But of course, there are children's programs other than cartoons. There are thousands of sitcoms and dramas written for a younger audience, and while the major concern with these seems to be the maturity level of the subjects tackled, this concern seems unjustified when you consider my earlier argument, that exposure to such topics is unavoidable. Of course, the amount of adult subjects to which parents think children should be exposed and the age at which parents think they should be exposed to them will ultimately be a moral question for each individual family, but if the question is whether or not a child's behavior will be affected negatively by having advanced knowledge of sex or drugs or other more adult issues, the answer is probably no.

Kids will always, without fail, mature faster and faster, each generation having acquired more of such advanced knowledge, and passing it on to the next. So while they might not be crucial to child development, they " re certainly not reason enough to say something as broad as 'Television affects children negatively". And let's not forget the educational children's programs, whose positive value for children is immeasurable. Take my own experiences with the once-popular educational children's program, Sesame Street. Sesame Street was essentially a group of puppets who each were allotted a certain amount of screen time, and took this time to single out and explain a concept of either reading or mathematics so it was understandable to kids like me.

Now, years later, dozens of friends my age will testify with me that were it not for Sesame Street, we wouldn't have begun reading until years after the age at which we actually did. It was all because of shows like Sesame Street. And while the direct effects of watching television are important to understand, the indirect effects of watching television, which is to say, the consequences of engaging in television viewing, are equally important. As I've already said, kids spend up to 1/2 of their waking lives doing nothing but watching television. This staggering statistic is frightening to many, but only so because of the stigma of evilness attached to television.

Parents are constantly pushing kids to stay involved in positive activities, so they " re not left with so much free time that they might consider negative act ivies, such as drug use and minor theft. Among these positive activites are normally sports, clubs, scouts, church groups, and the like. But if we " ve already established that TV is not inherently evil, then why not consider watching television to be a positive activity which can act as an alternative to certain negative activities. Another parental complaint is that so much television viewing limits social interaction among children, but just try and turn on a TV and find a program that doesn't involve some form of human interaction. Kids will be unavoidably influenced by the interaction they watch on TV almost as much as the interaction they do amongst themselves. Individual human behavior is essentially nothing more than a collective effort of both everything and everybody the individual has ever known, and over years and years of seasons and seasons of a certain show, characters are developed so well and painted so richly that loyal viewers and such characters might as well be personal aquaintances.

So while real-life human interaction is preferable to just observing human interaction, by no means does a child who watches too much TV have to be socially inept. By saying all of this, I'm by no means encouraging parents to sit their children down in front of the TV and mandate 8 hours of watching a day. Just don't be afraid to let your child watch a little TV every once in awhile. TV isn't the bad guy. TV isn't what's wrong with America's kids. TV simply prepares them for what's to come.