The Impact of Television & Video Entertainment on Student Achievement in Reading and Writing.
By Ron Kaufman
"Educational television should be absolutely forbidden. It can only lead to unreasonable disappointment when your child discovers that the letters of the alphabet do not leap up and dance around with royal-blue chickens."
-- Fran Lebowitz, Metropolitan Life, 1978
The term "cyberspace" was coined by writer William Gibson in his book Neuromancer. Published in 1984, Neuromancer was one of the first "cyberpunk" novels that involved a virtual world alongside the real one. The novels of Gibson, Neal Stephenson and other "cyberpunk" authors tell stories of a not-so-distant future where video screens, computers and other media channels
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The children of this new millennium will be barraged with more electronic media than ever in history. The nature of a child 's curiosity will naturally drawn him or her to a video game or interactive television. The other influence is that cable operators, television networks and video game publishers target children (and their parents) as part of the consumer base. Children will not be able to escape electronic media and in the future may be drawn more and more toward it.
Though the new media-saturated world may be wonderful in many ways, what suffers may be traditional educational practices. If children spend their time watching TV and playing video games they are not spending a great deal of time reading and writing. Statistics collected by the U.S. Department of Education 's National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) show that student achievement in both reading and writing has been declining in recent years. The NCES 1998 Writing Report Card states that 16 percent of 4th and 8th graders and 22 percent of 12th graders have not mastered basic writing skills (March, 1999). The NCES 1998 Reading Report Card shows that across grades 4, 8, and 12, no more than 40 percent achieved the "proficient" level of reading and only 7 percent of 4th graders, 3 percent of 8th graders, and 6 percent of 12th graders could read at the "advanced" level.
"The average, or typical, American student is not a proficient writer. Instead,
In the article entitled “Screen Addiction Is Taking a Toll on Children” Jane E. Brody discusses how the youth is facing a problematic issues with electronic media causing them to become unhealthy and hindering their normal development. First, Brody points outs that a great deal of electronic media usage can conflict with children’s schoolwork. The writer also indicates that adolescents who spend a great deal of their time playing video games tend to block out the outside world and become anti-social. In addition, she states that “young children under the age of two should not be exposed to electronic media because a child’s brain develops rapidly during the first years”. The author also indicates that young children learn more efficiently by
The ideas of video games and computer entertainment are often met with a concern for children or society. The belief that a violent computer or video game could have negative everlasting effects on individuals has coexisted since their creation. All across the globe many forms of computer entertainment have been blamed for the alleged increase in aggressiveness, violence, and addiction in both children and adults. While those who are in closely related fields may see the benefits from such technology many still forgo the positive applications of this so-called entertainment. Since the mainstream appearance of computer entertainment multiple organizations have devised beneficial methods in order to help educate parents and end-users on the material
The internet provides access to an incredible amount of information about history, science, and people and cultures from around the world. So, TV and video games provide considerable entertainment to all ages.
Does violence on television have a negative effect on children and teenagers? The violence seen on television has had surprising negative effect. Violence shown on television causes children and teenagers to develop behavioral problems and learning disabilities. Such behavioral and learning problems include; language development, school performance / learning, cognitive development and their general behavior to others (Kinnear 27). In a study on the correlation between violence and television done with 1,565 teenage boys over a six-year period in London, William Belson, a British psychologist, found that every time a child saw someone being shot or killed on television they became less caring towards other people. William Belson also
Reading and writing is crucial for increasing achievement among people of all ethnicities. For many young kids, books are their primary source of learning how to read and write besides the parameter of the classroom. However, there is a significant decrease in the literacy rate found in African-American communities. There is a need for stronger literacy education for this particular group of the population. A huge problem associated with that can be attributed the failure of the public school system to effectively educate the youth. According to the 2009 NAEP data, only 33 percent of 4th graders and 32 percent of 8th graders in the U.S performed at or above proficiency in reading on national tests. These results are very discouraging, in the African-American community, but the results are even worse because only 16 percent of African American 4th graders and 14 percent of African American 8th graders performed at or above the grade proficiency level in 2009.
According to the article, "Video Games and Children," by Bernard Cesarone, ever since the 1970?s, parents have been placing their children in front of televisions and allowed them to waste away the hours playing video games (31). As technology and a national surge
“Electronic games are now an everyday part of childhood and adolescence” (Olsen, 2010). Considering children and adolescence are our future, parents need to consider and monitor how these electronic games are affecting their child. There are more studies afloat that report the negative affects of video games over the positive effects until recently. Children and adolescents become addicted to video games easily so it is important to monitor what they are playing and how it is affecting them and their character. A recent study on many boys and girls reported why they are
It comes to know surprise that kids in our current generation have relied heavily on technology for their entertainment, which means that there must be over million shows, video games, television, videos, and so forth, for the public to choose from. With the video game market rising year after year, it is bound to fall under a certain system. Many studies have brought the attention to the idea of the
In chapter 10 Postman discusses the ways in which television has effected education. He uses the example of Sesame Street quite a lot throughout the chapter. He begins by stating Sesame Street was almost guaranteed to be successful with children due to the fact that having children learn through essentially commercials is nothing new. While the show is educational it is still pure entertainment. He continues of to say that Sesame Street actually goes against traditional book learning but puts of a front that it teaches children to love school. It does not teach children to love school, but rather to love television. Going to a classroom is a place where the children can interact socially and the television show isolates them, in a classroom
We should ask ourselves, are the parts divided fairly equally? They go on to say, “Do screens eat up most of the hours outside of school or daycare? (Finkelstein & Roberts, 2004). One way to ensure that our children are not spending too much time in front of the television to try implementing “No television on the weekend” (Finkelstein & Roberts, 2004) , use that time to plan other fun, exciting, and educational activities that both you and your child will enjoy. You will not only create a learning experience you will be building fond memories that you and your child will hold dear for years to come.
I feel the effect that video games have on children has been a very topical and debatable subject since they were introduced in the 1970’s. I feel it is important because if video games were damaging for children most video game companies would lose their biggest fan base and it would be very damaging for an economy for example in 2012 the entertainment software industry added over 6.2 billion dollars to US GDP. In the US the computer game industry directly and indirectly employees more than 146,000 people. The average salary for direct employees is 94,747 dollars, resulting in a total national compensation of 4 billion dollars also direct employment grew at an annual rate of more than 13 times the growth of the U.S labor market (9% vs. 0.72%) between 2009 and 2012. Many people have researched this economic question and some have been very biased on both sides but this isn’t surprising when you look at the last social phenomenon rock-and-roll or the “devil’s music” to some. Any home that has access to video games (88% of households) I feel the parents will be conscious to how much their children play video games and the effect it has on them. So I have aimed for my research to help parents gain an insight to the effects of video games, signs to look out for and helpful recommendations if they are worried about
Unlike previous generations who were “introduced” to the internet, television and social media, the present generation is “born” in it. By this statement, it is implied that children today are much closer to technology and media than adults are, and so, are more likely to be affected by it. Perhaps, the highest impact on the physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development of children and adolescents is by media due to its ready availability through Smart phones, tablet PCs and other portable devices. This paper attempts to evaluate some of the influences of media on various aspects of child and adolescent development.
Since the Early 70’s video games have been giving a bad name. Parents state that video games rot the minds of children and are influencing them do be violent. These accusations are far from the truth. In my research I found that there are many positive effects of gaming. Some of these effects are increased skills, creativity, general knowledge, and also help those in need. Parents can also take proper precautions and look into a game before buying it to see if it meets the criteria discussed in this paper.
All that is required is just skillfully managing the keyboard. Computer life is so exciting, that sometimes people are not concerned so much on events that occur in reality, as on what is happening in the virtual world. Where, by passing different levels and achieving any success, player feels how great and powerful he is. With each passing day, the video game industry progresses, giving us the better opportunity to fully enjoy the scene. The purpose of this essay is to prove that video games bring more harm than benefits to children. Firstly in this essay, negative effects will be considered, after that it will review benefits of video games, and finally give recommendations to parents, how not to allow games to negatively influence their children.
Television is a big part of today’s society. Everybody watches television, including the children. There is a potential problem with letting children watch television. Ask this question, would someone let their own child watch some of the programming that they watch, too? Some of these programs are intended for the adult generation, not young children. Violence has a major role in television these days. Letting children watch this violence could corrupt their minds and eventually lead to bad behavior. There needs to be a limitation on the types of television programming that parents let their children watch, because violence in television can negatively affect children.