Effects of Tv on Children

Effects of TV on Children

Joe is sitting in school watching the clock. The teacher is talking to the class but Joe just can't wait to get home. When the bell finally rings, he runs out of the classroom all the way home. After getting home, he runs to turn on the TV. Having nothing more exciting to do, Joe will sit in front of the television keeping him from doing his homework until his mom calls him for dinner. This is an all to familiar in many American homes today. What many people don't realize are the problems that can develop from young children watching too much TV. Many arising problems are resulting from this concern. When a young child with a maturing brain sits in front of the TV for several hours every day, it can instigate loss of creativity, impatience, and violence further along down the road.

The ability to be creative is an important factor in the development of a child's mind. By sitting down and watching TV for a couple hours, the child is entertained but is also not thinking. Information in given to them while watching TV so when it comes time to read a book in school, some children can have a hard time learning these ideas because they are used to just hearing them on TV. They are so used to having images flash before them that they have trouble moving their eyes side to side to gather the information for themselves. With the TV in front of them they may never stop to think that putting a puzzle together, or reading a book could also be fun. They could actually become dependent on this one source of fantasy and never bother to create their own. As the child grows older they will less likely put effort into playing with other kids or taking up a hobby.

While losing creativity, the child can also become impatient. By having all the stories and facts shown in front of them, they can easily loose interest sitting in a classroom all day. Even during their favorite TV show there is a brief change of pace in the show when a commercial comes on, which is about every seven minutes. Their attention spans are being built by this continuous interruption, which will cause them to loose focus easily. Research has shown that teachers today are using many more multimedia devices to capture the student’s attention. Being so used to seeing information provided by the TV, they are more responsive to learning with it in school and are more likely to remember it. Many links are showing up in studies between Attention Deficit Disorder and watching too much television in elementary children. This disorder is becoming more common in the classroom where they have a hard time concentrating.

Along with losing creativity and becoming impatient, the child is more likely to behave violent. They can learn it as it is played repeatedly on TV, that they can get what they want by reacting with violence. When they see a character shot or beat someone up so they can steal the car they may catch on to the idea and they will expect it in the real world. The children then may create the violence that their mind sees