Television and Children

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Television and Children

• Scott Gardner

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Questions

• Does TV affect you?
• Does it affect your emotions?
• Does it affect your thoughts?
• Does it affect your behavior?
• Does TV affect kids?
• Emotions
• thoughts
• behavior

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Television A Mixed Blessing

• American children spend an average of 23 hours
  per week watching TV. Thats over 3 hrs./day
• By the time a child has finished elementary
  school, she/he has witnessed 8,000 murders

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• By age 18, people will have seen an estimated
  200,000 acts of violence on TV
• An average American child is exposed to 5 violent
  acts in one hour of prime-time TV
• 57 of all TV programs show violent acts

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• 85 of the programs on two of the premium cable
  channels-HBO and Showtime- are devoted to violence

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TV Violence is linked with

• Desensitization
• Children re-enacting
• Problems distinguishing reality from fantasy

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• Increased physical and verbal aggression
• Obesity

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National Television Study, 1994-95

• Perpetrators go unpunished in 73 percent of
  violent scenes
• Negative consequences of violence are not often
  portrayed
• There are some notable differences in
  presentation of violence across channels

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• There are important differences in presentation
  of violence across types of programs

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Does it affect me?

• So, if tv and media affects kids, does it affect
  adults?

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• The more R-rated movies one sees, the more likely
  to
• use the F-word and sleep around with multiple sex
  partners.
• TV violence related to later criminal activity,
  likelihood of committing violent crimes such as
  rape and murder

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• TV violence was also related to an increase in
  hurtful behavior toward loved ones. While
  pro-social TV viewing related to a decrease in
  hurtful behavior to spouses (Loye, Gorney,
  Steele, 1977)
• TV viewing in general also tended to desensitize
  viewers to real-life aggression

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Imitation

• Even adults imitated what they saw on TV
• One study correlated number of suicides on TV
  soap operas with the number of adult suicides
  immediately following those shows and found a
  significant increase in suicides after those
  shows. (Phillips, 1982)

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Consequences of Erotic or Pornographic Media

• Leads to an addictive cycle
• 1) Their desire for it escalates.
• 2) They become desensitized to the abnormality of
  the behavior portrayed.
• 3) Their is a tendency and temptation to act out
  what they have witnessed.

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Positively Impacting Your Child

• For boys aged 10 - 14, parental discretion
  advisories and PG-13 and R ratings made
  movies more attractive
• For girls aged 5-9, viewer discretion
  advisories made programs less attractive

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• Children whose parents generally exerted guidance
  over their TV viewing were less likely to choose
  programs with advisories or ratings.
• Children who reported engaging in more
  aggression-related behaviors showed more interest
  in programs with advisories.

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Make the Television an Educational Tool

• View the shows before or with the children and
  ask yourself the following questions
• Is it suitable for the childs age?
• Is there an educational principle, goal or moral
  in the program

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• Keep a list of alternate activities on hand
• reading
• art projects
• out door activities

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• Limit television viewing
• Dont use the TV as a baby-sitter or pacifier
• Set a good example for your children
• Encourage critical evaluation of TV content