Psychosocial Impact of Television on Children Essay

Television was erst considered a luxury item, however, today is just a commodity. Even unhopeful income households have one television set, not only for entertainment save to keep in touch with the happenings around the world. Television, like both another(prenominal) technological advancement, bought with it negatives and positives to the hostelry. It was once only used as a mean(a) of news and light entertainment, mostly by the elders of a household. Now though it has expanded its purpose and is now commonly used for various purposes by all age groups.As mentioned in earlier conclusions, television itself is not a harmful device previous studies have shown that its own personal effects argon neither positive nor negative. However, it is the programmes that are aired that effect the society especially on the physical and psychological well-organism of the younger generations. search papers, different forms of studies and articles have found the effects of television both, h armful and useful, on the development of a child. Even the primary question done through qualitative method of inter masking proved that television has no connection between the style and attention of parents.Instead the parents remained intact with the activities of their children regardless of their television reflection habits. This discussion spotlights various positives and negatives of television usage by the children. Krosnick, Anand and Hartl (2003) have place three psycho cordial predictors of viewing television. The first one they say is the need satisfaction, which occurs out-of-pocket to lack in the ability to socially interacting with peers, over intelligence, and to avoid parental punishment.Parental influence was nominated as the second one where absence of parental guidance and rules lead to increase in watch television. The weather one was resource availability where it was found that it has no link with the boilersuit income of the household. Gupta, Saini , Acharya and Miglani (1994) have identified almost all positives and negatives within two paragraphs of their research paper. They define the most positive effects of television watching as an aid to the development of cognitive ability, a source of training, cognition and skill development.They mention that it also generates the desire of learning and imparts general awareness. It evict also have a positive effect on the attitudes and carriage of the child while advancing conceptual and concrete thinking. They then highlight the negatives as the excuse to let go of reading, playing, exercising, and seeing and then fine-looking rise to a passive doings. When children continue watching television their social interaction may decline and their eating habits tidy sum also be harmed.A pre-TV introduction (age 3-4) and post-TV introduction (age 7-8) study was conducted by Gunter, Charlton, Coles and Panting (2000). Their study results show that the effects (positives and negat ives) are usually according to the gender of the child. A more antisocial behavior was witnessed in the boys after the introduction of the TV whereas the girls social behavior was un unnatural. Both of the genders however did not display any inter-gender difference. The researchers saw that cartoon viewing was highly linked to pre-TV antisocial behavior and post-TV neuroticism levels. This did not change even when the viewing of knock-down-and-drag-out acts was controlled thus proving that the presence of any nonviolent ingredient had an effect on the impatient children. Watching cartoons was also related to to decrease in the level of disquiet among children. The minds, values, thinking styles, and even social behavior are continuously develop at primal age. Due to this it can be greatly affected by the elements present in the life of the child. They are vulnerable to the information conveyed through television, and it may cause a long-term effect.As their views and percept ions are not developed yet they cannot distinguish between the ingenuousness and the made-up stuff (Team headed by Baron, 2001). The paper also mentions that almost two-third of the programmes that are aired contain violent acts of some sort, out of which most shows are for children. It would have been a learning experience if the bad guys are punished severely, but at times they are set free without punishment and violence is shown as part of a glamorized world.According to APA (2004) by viewing violent behavior repeatedly children can bewilder immune towards the irritation and suffering of others, at the same time they can also become fearful of the world around them. This proves that it is not necessary that the depiction of the violent acts can cause harm in more than one ways. Children can also become stressed, depressed, or pessimistic due to the negativity being imposed. They might go bad judging people and world as a bad place which has nothing to offer but pain and m isadventure to the innocent people.Hussain (2007) says that the exposure to violence and the glory of bad guy makes children engender to portray aggressive and violent behavior assuming that it is socially authorized and normal. Viewing of television has also been known to cause Attention dearth Hyperactive Disorder (hyperkinetic syndrome), which is described as inattentiveness, lack of impulse control, and hyperactivity. ADHD has been known to cause problems in learning and educational field. Television watching can also have a negative impact on the health of a child (Team headed by Baron, 2001).It can lead to a belief that looking like actors and models is beauty thus taking absent the innocence of a child. This has really negative effects on females who start developing tree trunk concept and self-image and start dieting at a very early age. Another social disadvantage is the division that this body image will cause amongst the children. At a very early age they will sta rt distinguishing their peers as fat, skinny, chubby, beautiful and ugly and this singularity will strengthen as they grow older. Another problem related to health and social issues is that of awakenuality as mentioned by CPS (2003).Children chance upon the word sex on television for the first time sooner than from their health care provider or parents. It has taken the role of the sex educator. Movies, shows, and even kids cartoon characters are shown as involved in informal acts. Children are led to believe that it is normal and risk-free, and everybody does it. This has lead to increasing issuance of sexually active individuals than ever. Strasburger (1995) has selected the sexuality related data in a table which shows the influence of television on the sexual acts at early age.