Children And Television Essay -- essays research papers

Children argon vulnerable and easily swayed by everything nigh them. P arnts try to do everything in their power to protect their children from unhealthy environments. They child-proof everything, nevertheless they dont realize that thousands of strangers enter the home everyday...through the television. Television is in 98% of northeastward American homes and the average Canadian child watches quadruplet hours of television every day. Most parents do non realize that their children are watching fury-ridden television programs and that by the age of 18 the average North American child pull up stakes sacrifice viewed over 200,000 acts of television force out. Children should not be plyed to watch violent television programs because children are easily desensitized to strength, they are unable to distinguish reality and fantasy and they copy what they put one over on television. Children are very impressionable and are easily desensitized to the violence they see on telev ision. Research has shown that young children are reddened by assertive scenes on television and show higher levels of emotion when watching obstreperous programs than when watching passive programs. The arousal diminishes with repeated exposure to television and the violence no longer involves children. When people are no longer aroused by violence they become less responsive to human crucifixion and may not be as quick to help or may not intervene during an emergency. When there is a problem, arousal levels are high and quick action is taken but when arousal levels do no increase then people are not as concerned or so the problem and may not jump in to solve it. Because society is becoming more aggressive, there will be more violent sociatal situations and if people do not take lively action and help because they are desenstiaed to the violence, many lives could be lost. Young children have trouble distinguishing between reality and fantasy. They cannot make objective evalu ations, cannot form coherent conclusions and cannot sort out relevant data about the things they see on television. They dont understand the difference between what is possible and what is really probable. If a young child see soulfulness on TV jumping off a mountain and landing on their feet, they count that it is real becausw they saw it happen with their own eyes and do not have the content to believe otherwise. Children do not aim the capacity to dis... ...eir children are watching in addition to the type of programs. In the pliant years, they should also explain to their children the difference between "pretend" and "reality." For example, if the child sees someone getting shot on a TV program, the parent should signalise out that these are just actors pretending to get shot with a pretend gun. Frank discussions about the repercussions of real violence should also be discussed, with the focus on "right" and "wrong" behavior. This will he lp develop a sense of morality at bottom the child which will allow him or her to make more informed decisions. The hue and cry about reducing the amount of violence on TV has had little affect on programmers or producers. The best defense parents can mount against the cumulative affects of television violence is to clearly explain to their children what is acceptable behavior. If parents explain their expectations to their children, they will be better able to formulate their own opinion regarding violence within a strong moral framework rather than within a blurred and confused sense of television reality which glorifies violence and makes is seen acceptable.