Growing Influence of Media on Children

Growing Influence of Media on Children

Media consumption has taken the place of reading story books or playing games as the favorite past time of children today. Overall, children between the ages of two and 18 spend an average of almost five-and-a-half hours a day at home watching television, playing video games, surfing the Web or using some other form of media, revealed at 1999 Kaiser Family Foundation report called "Kids & Media at The New Millennium." Often children multitask, engaging in more than one media-related activity at the same time.

How does all this media use affect children's cognitive, emotional and social development? Researchers are only beginning to search for answers, now that society is taking the question seriously.

Violence in children is a big problem in our society today .The entertainment media plays a powerful role in the formation of values and morals in children.
There are many things that can influence a child's behavior, but we will only focus on the entertainment industry: television, wrestling, and video games. We will also offer some solutions to how parents can help to control the amount of violence a child is exposed to in the media.
TELEVISION
Television violence affects youngsters of all ages. Today, children and teenagers are subjected to vast amounts of violence on television and in the movies. Because young children cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality, they are easily influenced by what they see in the media. "Children are visual learners and they model both positive and negative behaviors they see (Beckman)."

Facts about television viewing and children (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry) ("Children and Violence")

Children watch an average of over 28 hours of television per week. By the time the average child reaches the age of twelve, he or she has witnessed over 8,000 murders.

Children's television programs actually contain five times more violence than the average prime time hour of TV.

Children who spend more time watching violent television programming are rated more poorly by their peers, have fewer

Problem-solving skills, and are more likely to get in trouble with the law as teenagers and young adults.

Extensive viewing of television violence by children causes greater aggressiveness. Children who view movies, in which violence is very realistic, are more likely to imitate what they see.