The Effect of Television on a Childs Attention Span

“Television has changed the American child from an irresistable force to an immovable object.” (Peter). There was a time when all children wanted to do was to run, play, explore, and be adventurous. As time evolved, children have found more interest in television. Statistics show that a child spends 900 hours per year in school,and they spend 1,200 hours per year watching television. When asked to choose between watching T.V. and spending time with their families fifty-four percent of four to six year olds voted they would prefer to watch television. Television has changed the mindset of children over the years it has been proven that the more programs they watch, the more harmful it is to their brain development. T.V.

In the article “TV’s Negative Influence on Kids Reaffirmed” by Jeffrey M. McCall, he addresses the issue of how TV has a negative influence on children. McCall states that young children and toddler’s cognitive ability do not develop as well when they have a television in the background while they are playing and interacting. McCall also argues that TV has a very influential role in the teenage pregnancy rate and how early teens become sexually active. To further prove his point, McCall proclaims that children and teens that are exposed to large amounts of television and video games become socially awkward and have issues interacting in society. McCall also says that the networks are rating their own programs carelessly, which is leading to shows that should be restricted by a V-chip being watched by children, rendering the restricting system null and void.

Television can affect learning and school performance if it exceeds the time kids need for their crucial for healthy physical and mental development. Most of children's free time, especially during the early development years, should be spent in activities such as playing, reading, exploring nature, learning about music or participating in sports. Research has shown that children's exposure to television during the preschool years is predictive of academic outcomes during adolescence. The most notable lesson about this

Technology throughout the past 30-40 years has become more advanced and accessible than ever. The television specifically has developed extremely since its beginning. What started off as a single camera caption, has developed into a full fledge worldwide availability. Within the United States, the TV is a normal everyday object common in households, hotels, schools, and even restaurants. There are approximately 118.4 million household in the United States that own a television set ( The Number of TV Households in the United States from season 2000-2001 to season 2016-2017 (in millions)).However, the increased amount of time spent watching TV has had a tremendous impact on people, especially kids. The differences in generations throughout the development of the TV has led to many questions, all revolving around whether or not the televisions has had a good or negative impact pertaining to children. Time spent watching television affects the brain, ability to learn, and skill levels in different areas (source. In the book “Last Child in The Woods,” Richard Louv discusses how children in the 1940’s would watch out the window at the scenery and have conversations, while children now sit and watch a movie on a flip-down video screen without knowledge to the outside world (Louv 16-17).

To ban or not to ban, that is the question in this case. I was acually watching this television show the other day and on it, there was a little boy watching T.V. when a commercial for a stuffed animal came on. Instead of hearing what the commercial was actually saying, all it showed was the stuffed animal trying to convince the little boy to get his parents to buy it. The little boy then, would not stop asking his parents until they finally got it for him. So maybe, it's not just the ads fault, it could be also the way most parents comply when their child begs for something. In this essay, I'm going to show alternative methods to keeping kids healthy and creating a better place for them to grow up in, rather than just blaming and/or banning the advertisements.

249 billion dollars are spent each year by parents purchasing products their children. Most of which are influenced by TV ads these children saw. Advertisements pandering to young kids is wrong, and the U.S. should join the growing list of countries bannign such ads. Not only are these advertisements unethical by targeting people too young to make an informed decision, they are used to promote both bad physical and mental habits.

This may be true, but one of the biggest teachers in my life was my dad. Anytime I saw or heard a commercial for something attractive my dad would ask me if buying it was something that I needed or would be worth the money. Nine times out of ten the answer was no. Parents need to help children understand advertising. Our children are the future of this nation, and if they don't learn from a young age how to disipline themselves from implusive buying our economy will

affect their language and cognitive development.” One article states that everyday actions like singing, playacting, and analyzing helps children develop and hone their cognitive abilities and motor skills; but distractions caused by television can hinder this development. Ph.D. Gwen Dewar explains talking between TV programs limits communication and personal talks between children and parents because it is nearly impossible to break focus from the TV.

Most traditional theories suggest that a child should hardly ever be in front of a television, or any electronic device for that matter. Many argue that it wastes time that could

There is no benefit in watching television in the first two years of life; increased television use is resulting in children spending large amounts of time alone and not interacting. (Napier, 2014). Screen media use could cause their cognitive and socioemotional development to be delayed and possibly their physical development if they are just sitting there watching television. Some people like to use the television as a babysitter and they tend not to interact with their kids. Infants spend more time in interaction with screen media that they do in any other activity, except sleeping. (Napier, 2014). The article also talks about how background television can be a barrier to parent-child interactions, as well as being a visual distraction. (Napier,

Critics today believe too much screen time takes a huge tole on todays children. In the passage "Screen Time Limits Are Vital for Children", they state, Children in the United States have an average of 7.5 hours of screen per day. this is despite long-standing guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics that children older than 2 years should be limited to 1-2 hours per day and even younger have no screen at all.

Imagine a 6 year old girl sitting in front of a flat screen TV for a long stretch of time. Her eyes are lit up, she is smiling and laughing; but oddly enough, she is not mindful of what is going on. Instead, the little girl is distracted from the outside world, and is possibly missing life at it’s fullest. People in today’s world love watching television- especially kids. This often times keeps them occupied. But to what extent?According to a 2010 research study, the average american spends 4.5 hours a day watching TV. In numerous cases, children these days engage in watching this amount of television way too often. For this reason, many people would argue that kids watch too much TV in today’s society. Children of all ages should not be watching such amounts of television. The time

Parents will always want the very best for their children, but at what point are the values of going with the “newest and latest” instilling in a child’s set of values. Children can be exposed to 40,000 commercials a year (McBride, MSN, RN, 1). Children spend a total of $35.6 billion out of their own money on marketed products, on the other side of that $187 billion is contributed by parents and caregivers influenced by their children (Mercer, 26). But, wouldn’t it be more meaning full to appeal to an audience which trumps children spending in marketing by $151.4 billion. Unfortunately marketers are only looking for the money in the moment not to look for long-term consumers. For a consumer to make a difference in an ever schematic market some difficult changes must be made. Consumers should not buy products that use commercials to target children and young audiences, marketers should be focusing there advertisements on consumers who are financially capable to purchase the product.

According to me, parents’ intervention and responsibility is essential. While advertisements transmit the idea that children need a certain product, parents have to make use of their authority and oppose their child’s nagging. First of all, children will get spoiled if all their wishes are their parents’ command. Secondly, children need to understand and respect the limits imposed by parents. It is crucial that they learn to respect their parents’ lifestyle and values. Finally, not only does the child have to learn to accept the parents “no”: the parents themselves need to learn and have the courage to oppose their child’s irrational wishes. The effectiveness of advertising and marketing on children greatly depends on how parents educate their children. Parents are responsible for protecting children from being marketed to by educating them adequately and establishing clear rules and limits. Unfortunately, it is impossible to completely isolate children from marketing strategies. Thus education has to play the role of a filter against these external ‘inputs’ that try to corrupt the very young.

Corporate marketers intentionally make parents miserable, by convincing kids that life is about buying (Barbaro, A ,2008). Children are a purchasing influences, as in they can decide what type of car a family should buy, where to go on vacation etc... Corporate marketers have caught on to this and make a parent’s life difficult by sending out messages of a product that the child “must have”, this then leads the child into nagging the parent until they give in and buy it for them. Children have a lot of power and advertisers know it. On average a child spends 40 hours a week outside of school consuming media, which is mostly commercial driven (Susan, L, 2003) and in addition, approximately 3000 commercial messages sent to a child a day