The Effects Of Television On Americas Youth — страница 2

television, the eyes are fixed on the screen. One hour a day in school learning to move the eyes back and forth cannot compete with four or more hours with eyes fixed on a television screen. It s little wonder that many children find difficulty learning to read. Another effect that television has on children is it decreases the time for children to develop speaking skills. Children may hear new words on a television show, but this is not the same as speaking. (Journal of Communication 66) If children are watching television then they are not spending time talking. Children usually learn to speak by first words and then by short sentences. Reading to a child, and speaking to a child, helps the development of speaking skills. A child spending four or more hours a day watching

television loses the time needed for conversation, and may well find difficulty becoming articulate and fluent, and be less able to speak and write in complete sentences. (Journal of Communication 67) Another major factor that has been looked at which has effected children greatly due to television is ADD (attention deficit disorder) and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactive disorder). There is enough research to suggest that not letting children under the age of five to view television in significant amounts will lessen the chance he or she will develop ADD or ADHD. Research findings on attention deficit disorder and Wise, 4 Attention deficit hyperactive disorder can be found in the medical literature. This is due to the rapidly-changing sound and images that may overwhelm the

nervous system of some young children and lead to hyperactive behavior and attention deficits. (The Development of Children 124) John Rosemund, the author of the article ADD is Real, and Misunderstood, stated that Wiring of the brain establishes neural pathways during the formative years appears strongly influenced by the child s environment. If a toddler is deprived of the appropriate stimuli, certain areas of the brain may not develop as fully as they could. Hours of television each day from three months of age on may limit the intellectual development of a child. (The News & Observer) Although there are many reasons that television effects children the most influential outcomes are the outcomes that the children pick up in the programs themselves and use them in society.

Television provides children with a powerful set of standards for behaviors. The child audience is uniquely vulnerable to televised presentations, particularly those in programming directed at children. What children see on television can lead to the learning and performance of similar social behaviors. The role television plays in the development of a child had been one of the most extensively examined areas of mass communication research. Although the effects of specific media content on the child viewer are complex, recent research has provided evidence of a casual relationship between children s perceptions and exposure to television programs. (Images of Life 19) One of these research studies was conducted in 1972 by Lyle Hoffman in which they asked third graders if they ever

copied what they saw on television, and more than 60 percent of the students answered that they did. This goes to Wise, 5 prove that even if the children know that they are following what they see on television that they do copy and portray the images they see. Think of all of the negative images children see on television they act upon because they think it is all right to do so. Exposure to stereotyped presentations can easily influence viewers behavior toward unfamiliar people. Viewers use what they learn from these television images to establish new norms for how they will act in certain situations. (Effects of Television 24) For example, there are too many television shows that base around killing and violence. This would prove to the child that there is nothing else to base

killing on. This goes into the child s brain and they start to think that killing or fighting is all right and in normal in society. Children will start to believe that the world revolves around television. They believe that anything not on television is not of any importance or reality. (Effects on Television 25) Think about it, how many times do you see an African-American, a Mexican, or an Asian. That s right none. This reflects on the child to this that these people have no importance to society and that is one of the ways racial issues are rooted. There have been many events that have happened in our society to prove that television has a drastic effect on the youth. The most famous event happened in Moraine, Ohio in October of 1993. A five-year-old boy set fire to his