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Jerry Benton October 15,2008 EDU 400-A: Intech Professor Milas

Children and Television

Today children are watching more television than ever before in history. The average American child watches around three to five hours of television daily. This excessive amount of television watching has caused great concern amongst teachers and parents alike. They are greatly concerned on what effects watching excessive amount of television has on our children emotional and physical. Although not all effects of television are negative some television viewing actual have positive attributes. I wish to discuss some of the positive and negative effects television has on our children. Studies indicate that excessive amount of television watching can be negative for a child’s education. The belief behind this theory is television time is taken away time that children should be reading and studying. Not only does too much television lead to lower school studies, but it also cuts into time children should be playing and exercising. Consequently excessive television watching contributes to negative health issues as well. Theorists believe many television programs show too much violence and abuse which consequently may lead to negative psychological behaviors. Television watching many times receives negative representations although some television watching benefits children. Television programs can be used as a learning tool. There are abundant amounts of “good” television programs such as Sesame Street. This one example of a television show that has helped many children learns to read and write. Television also allows us to visit different cultures that we may never have the chance to see or visit. Television also allows children to learn of news events that are occurring. So television does have many positive things to offer. Studies on television viewing have revealed that the amount of violence on television is increasing. Children who are exposed to watching television programs can make children afraid, suspicious and may increase tendencies toward aggressive behavior. This is not a proven fact, but evidence tends to make us believe there may be a connection. Parents should definitely monitor their children’s television time and pay close attention to what programs they are watching. A limit of two hours of television watching on school nights should be set for children who are attending school. There are certain television programs that should be filtered out preventing the opportunity from happening. With the vast amount of channels now available, children without parent supervision could be exposed to hostel and sexual content that is not suitable for children. Television is a nice luxury that we can enjoy and learn from. It just like most other things in life it just needs some limitations to be set.