Is Television A Harmful Medium? Essay - 763 words

Is Television A Harmful Medium? "In 1961 I worried that my children would not benefit much from television, but in 1991 I worry that my grandchildren will actually be harmed by it. Newton N. Minow, FCC Chairman The impact of television on the childs development is a controversial issue that has been a subject to a lively debate in recent years. Some Americans claim television is a kind of entertainment that can also be very educational. Others believe that it does great harm to children, which are very vulnerable in psychological matters. Both parties can be justified in their beliefs, and neither is actually wrong. The thing is that some TV programmes are rather useful and help children to liberalize and broaden their outlook.


But who can guarantee that kids will only watch these safe educational programmes? According to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (Section 551, "Parental Choice in Television Programming," Section (a)), an average American child is exposed to 25 hours of television each week and some children are exposed to as much as 11 hours of television a day[]. At the same time the findings claim that children in the United States are, on average, exposed to an estimated 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence on television by the time the child completes elementary school[]. The numbers are really horrible, taking into consideration the fact that almost everything children are seeing is essentially going into their minds in some sort of uncensored or unfiltered way []. What is worse, children tend to assume that acts of violence acceptable in everyday life. Thousands of kids nationwide have cable or satellite TV installed in their bedrooms. As a result they watch whatever they want and the television programming content is full of abusive and destructive information. This content not controlled by neither the broadcasting company, nor by the parents.


The violence shown on television very often leads to aggressive behaviour, desensitization to real-life violence and "mean and scary world" syndrome. The researchers and doctors tend to agree that TV programming is actually harmful to children. Increased fear, animosity, cruelty and emotional outbursts seem to be only some few of a great list of negative impacts of combative programs. All this is all about harmful programmes; the ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Essay Tags: television programming, tv violence, harmful, negative impact, programming

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