A very highly talked about topic in the US is how much television a child matches or really how bad is television for young kids. Does it effect the development of their attention disorders as they grow to become adolescences and eventually adults? The first two years of a Childs life are critical times for brain development. Electronics and especially TV can interfere with the way the brain develops.
As kids get older, too much TV can effect activities such as being physically active, reading, studying, experiencing social scenes with friends and family. It must be hard as a parent to try and help your kid avoid TV if you watch it yourself. In some households, the TV is just on even without anyone watching. Some parents buy videos and shows that they think can make their kids smarter. But why not just buy a board game? Or a kids book or game?
According to http://www.raisesmartkid.com/all-ages/1-articles/13-the-good-and-bad-effects-of-tv-on-your-kid, “Researchers from the University of Sydney report a link between total screen time and retinal artery width in children. Kids with lots of screen time were found to have narrow artery in their eyes, which may indicate heart risk.”
In conclusion, i believe that tv at a young age is not beneficial to help a brain develop. I do not think kid shows are even positive for children. The types of kids shows there are today are becoming more and more harmful to a child.
I agree with a lot of what you have mentioned about the negative influences television has on children in this day and age. Rather than spending time outdoors and doing activities with other children, kids spend their days cooped up inside the house watching idiotic cartoons. There is some good TV such as watching the news and learning about what is going on in the world, however reality TV shows today are negatively effecting our society and brainwashing us to think this is how we should dress, act, and physically appear. Television today has become very explicit with what they show, children have the availability to watch violence and listen to explicit language without supervision, which will overall effect them in a negative way and give them the wrong ideas on morality and ethics. Here is an article on Kids health that further explicates the affects TV has on children, http://kidshealth.org/parent/positive/family/tv_affects_child.html
You have a great point about TV being a negative influence on kids while growing up being chewing up time that could be used for more productive things. I wanted to say not all TV is bad for people but it is worth it to bring up one of the negative aspects of TV. The violent shows and movies kids watch every day have big effects on those who watch them. Albert Bandura demonstrated directly with his Bobo doll experiment in 1961 how kids are influenced on what they watch. Kids were put in a room and witnessed adults beating up Bobo the doll and when they were put alone with Bobo they did the exact same thing while kids who didn’t witness the brutality played calmly with Bobo. What we watch can directly affect how we act in the future so we need to be careful what TV children are able to see at young ages because TV can affect us negatively. More about the experiment can be read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobo_doll_experiment
I feel like there is a weak correlation between the time kids spend in front of the tv and heart disease. I understand the point the study is trying to make, that the more time kids spend in front of the tv, the less exercise they get, and therefore narrow arteries. But I feel that this study came to this conclusion, but other studies may have found no correlation or even the contrary belief. I was reading another blog a peer put up, and the student found a study that came to the conclusion, that video games improve eye sight.
Sorry i forgot to add a link! This article says that monitoring a childs TV time is a good idea and has its advantages. http://kidshealth.org/parent/positive/family/tv_affects_child.html
As a young kid I definitely watched my fair share of TV but I was always eager to go outside and stay active. Over the last decade I have started to see a big transition from physical activity to sitting inside watching tv and playing video games. I think this is already a big problem in our society and it is only going to continue to get bigger until we do something about it. According to statistics on Michigan university’s health system page, children ages 2-5 watch an average of 32 hours per week of electronics (roughly 4.6 hours per day) when doctors prescribe no more than 2 hours. If this is really having an effect on child development, this issue needs to be looked at more seriously.
http://www.med.umich.edu/yourchild/topics/tv.htm
http://kidshealth.org/parent/positive/family/tv_affects_child.html
Our generation was the first to get away from books and board games. I never read by myself as a kid, I hated it. I played a few board games but only until I was about 8. Walking around a grocery store I see kids with their faces buried in their parents cellphone, some who are not even capable of walking yet! If society thinks our generation is struggling when it comes to reading and being physically fit, we have a HUGE upcoming problem with the children today. I do not think television is great for growing children, but I do not think it is the worst thing in the world. I believe a child’s television/video game time should be limited, and should be substituted for books or playing outside.