Television

Instructions: Search for 3 articles (credible sources) related to **television**.

Jason Jia: 1 "The sheer prominence of television in daily life has an influence on social processes and the use of places. Gross statistics on time use suggest perhaps a greater role for television than is actually the case, since attention to the television set varies in actual viewing situations, and performing various activities while watching television is the norm. Nevertheless, these data are important to geographers, because the more time people spend watching television, the less time they can spend in public places such as sports arenas, churches, markets, and squares (Hawley 1986, 101). Watching television is the greatest single use of "free time" (time not spent working, sleeping, or attending to household or per- sonal needs) not only in post-industrial societies such as the U.S., but also in industrial and many preindustrial societies (Szalai 1972, ch. 6; Lull 1988; "Television in the Developing World" 1985). In the U.S., the average person spends 40 percent of his/her free time attending to television at some level (Robinson and Converse 1972). The average American family's television set is turned on for about six hours per day. Ninety-eight percent of all households have television sets and 76 percent of the total population watches television on a given night during prime time (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1990). At the current rate of growth, there will be an average of two televisions per U.S. household in 1995. The appeal of the medium transcends national borders. In a major international study, the principal determinant of viewing time was television ownership (Robinson and Converse 1972, 198). Other factors such as education and class had varying effects. In general, once people are able to acquire a television set, they use it with similar alacrity whether they live in Des Moines, Iowa or Kragujevac, Yugoslavia."

Source: Annals of the Association of American Geographers Published by: __ [|Taylor & Francis, Ltd.] __ on behalf of the __ [|Association of American Geographers] __ Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org.libproxy.nlb.gov.sg/stable/2563539 "Television as Gathering Place" by Paul C. Adams Page [118] of 117-135

2 //Parent report of viewing habits//. Parents were asked to estimate the number of hours they watched television on a typical weekday evening. The mean of fathers’ estimates was 1.72 hours. The mean of actual hours spent viewing television was 1.18 hours. The mean of mothers' estimates was 1.95 hours; the mean of actual hours spent viewing television was 1.20. Total viewing time was considerably lower than the Neilson-reported national average. This may be due, in part, to the non- random sample of working parents or full-time students-parents who may have less time to watch television. Also, global estimates were higher than actual report. These findings are consistent with those of Anderson (1983). Simultaneous activities while watching television. Information was collected on parents' report of additional activities engaged in while watching television. Over a two-week period, all fathers reported watching a total of 136 pro- grams, and giving their complete attention to the program 75 times, or 55% of the time. Mothers reported watching a total of 143 pro- grams, and giving their complete attention 52 times, or 36% of the time. Responses to the "What else did you do while watching television?" question yielded a variety of answers. For purposes of this study, responses to this question were categorized into three groups: (a) domestic chores, such as doing laundry; (b) child care or playing with child; and (c) personal activities, such as letter writing, studying, or magazine reading. Fathers reported doing something else while watching television a total of 35 times, mothers, a total of 66 times.

Source: Family Relations Published by: National Council of Family Relations Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org.libproxy.nlb.gov.sg/stable/583889 "Family Perceptions of Television Viewing Habits" by Nancy M. Hopkins and Ann K. Mullis Page [179] of 177-181

3 Two important points can be gleaned from these studies. First, children who were ex- posed to television food commercials emitted more bids for the advertised food products than children in the control condition. However, only children who viewed the com- mercial messages with their mothers bid on more different advertised products than did children in the control condition. What does this mean? It means that the television commercials were effective in getting the young viewers to nag their parents for advertised foods. It also means that when children and their mothers viewed the commercial messages together the children tried to per- suade their mothers to buy more of the 6 advertised products than did children in the control condition. It could be that children in the mother-child viewing condition thought they would have a better chance at persuading their mothers to purchase more of the advertised products because their mothers had also been exposed to the appeal of the commercial messages.

Source: Family Relations Published by: National Council of Family Relations Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org.libproxy.nlb.gov.sg/stable/584039 "Television Food Commercials Aimed at Children, Family Grocery Shopping, and Mother-Child Interactions" by Gene H. Brody, Zolinda Stoneman, T. Scott Lane and Alice K. Sanders Page [439] of 435-439

Jason Lim: 1 2 3

Kho Wen Hao: 1 2 3

Samuel Kng: 1 2 3

Koh Han Wei: 1 Children in the United States are spending more time in front of screens-watching television, movies, and using computers- than ever before. They are spending much more time with these types of media than with books or in free play, and it is happening at younger and younger ages. Parents are not just “letting” their children watch but are often actively encouraging these forms of passive entertainment. TV is a cheap and always available babysitter, so it’s no wonder parents sometimes rely on it to keep kids busy while grown-ups take care of household chores, bills, or catch up on their emails.

Children under two spend, on average, more than two hours every day watching TV or using other screen media like computer games and video games. But according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, children under 2 should not be watching TV, videos, or DVDs at all. In fact, the Academy recommends no “screen time” for babies and toddlers. Parents should instead encourage more interactive activities such as playing and talking. The American Academy of Pediatrics first announced this in 1999, but most parents are unaware of this advice: either their pediatrician never mentioned it or parents figure time in front of a screen is harmless or even educational, provided children are watching the “right programs.”

Research shows that, for children under 3, it’s not just what’s on TV that matters but that it’s on at all. Even if the TV is simply “on” in the room where the child is playing, there are negative effects. A study in 2008 found that when an adult TV program was on in the room where babies or toddlers were playing, the children didn’t play as intently or as long as when the TV was off. “Background TV” also affects how a child interacts with his or her parents. When the TV is on, parents tend to be more distracted and less attuned to their children and their needs, reducing the quality of the interaction. Young children are better able to complete complex and sophisticated task when they work with an adult or older child. When parents are attentive, children are also more likely to engage in independent goal-oriented play, higher quality play, and more focused play.

Ravichandran, P. & deBravo, B.F., (June, 2010). Young Children and Screen Time (Television, DVDs, Computer). National Research Center for Women and Families.

2 Limiting the amount of time your toddler (or preschooler) spends watching TV is important. But just as important, and perhaps even more important, is placing limits on what your child can watch. There's a significant difference between Sesame Street and Road Rovers, between Barney & Friends and The Flintstones, between Little Bear and the Big Bad BeetleBorgs. But your child doesn't know what's junk and what's not. You do. Yet surprisingly, nearly six out of seven parents (of children aged three to eight) do not help their children select the programs they watch on TV.

If you don't watch out for what your child watches, you leave your child prey to such shows as the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Saturday morning TV programs. In addition to offering virtually no educational value, these shows average about two dozen acts of violence per hour. What's even worse, most of this violence has virtually no consequences. After all, how many times can Wile E. Coyote ("Super Genius") be blown up or crushed by an anvil and still bounce back?

But there's really no reason for you to let this happen. You can get the idea of what any series is like by watching two or three episodes. You can prescreen videos—and you can even prescreen TV shows by taping them and reviewing them before letting your child watch them. But you can't properly monitor children's TV programs unless you at least occasionally watch the same TV shows or videos that your toddler watches.

Family Education Network (2010). Watch TV Along with Your Child. Retrieved from http://life.familyeducation.com/television/toddler/53399.html?detoured=1

3 Children of different ages watch and understand television in different ways, depending on the length of their attention spans, the ways in which they process information, the amount of mental effort they invest, and their own life experiences. These variables must all be examined to gain an understanding of how television violence affects them.

Infants (children up to 18 months old) can pay attention to an operating television set for short periods of time, but the attention demands a great effort and infants are usually more interested in their own activities. Even when they do pay attention to the television, infants likely miss most of what adults consider to be program content. They experience it primarily as fragmented displays of light and sound, which they are only intermittently able to group into meaningful combinations such as recognizable human or animal characters.

No research has focused specifically on how violent content affects infants, but there is some evidence that infants can imitate behaviour from television when that behaviour is presented in a simple, uncluttered and instructional manner.

Children do not become full-fledged "viewers" until around the age of two-and-a-half. As toddlers, they begin to pay more attention to the television set when it is on, and they develop a limited ability to extract meaning from television content. They are likely to imitate what they see and hear on television.

The viewing patterns children establish as toddlers will influence their viewing habits throughout their lives. Since toddlers have a strong preference for cartoons and other programs that have characters who move fast, there is considerable likelihood that they will be exposed to large amounts of violence.

At the preschool age (three to five years old), children begin watching television with an "exploration" approach. They actively search for meaning in the content, but are still especially attracted to vivid production features, such as rapid character movement, rapid changes of scene, and intense or unexpected sights and sounds.

Because television violence is accompanied by vivid production features, preschoolers are predisposed to seek out and pay attention to violence—particularly cartoon violence. It is not the violence itself that makes the cartoons attractive to preschoolers, but the accompanying vivid production features. With this preference for cartoons, preschoolers are being exposed to a large number of violent acts in their viewing day. Moreover, they are unlikely to be able to put the violence in context, since they are likely to miss any subtlety conveyed mitigating information concerning motivation and consequences. Preschoolers behave more aggressively than usual in their play after watching any high-action exciting television content, but especially after watching violent television.

Elementary school age (ages six to eleven) is considered a critical period for understanding the effects of television on aggression. At this stage, children develop the attention span and cognitive ability to follow continuous plots, to make inferences about implicit content, and to recognize motivations and consequences to characters' actions. However, they are also investing increasingly less mental effort overall in their viewing, and it is mental effort that determines whether children will process television information deeply or merely react to it in an unfocused, superficial way.

By age eight, children are more likely to be sensitive to important moderating influences of television content, and will not become more aggressive themselves if the violence they see is portrayed as evil, as causing human suffering, or as resulting in punishment or disapproval. However, they are especially likely to show increased aggression from watching violent television if they believe the violence reflects real life, if they identify with a violent hero (as boys often do), or if they engage in aggressive fantasies.

At ages 6 to 11, elementary school children still watch cartoons but also begin watching more adult or family-oriented programming than they did when they were younger. They also develop a surprising taste for horror movies, perhaps deliberately scaring themselves in an attempt to overcome their own fears. However, to the extent that they are desensitizing themselves to fear and violence, they are also very likely becoming more tolerant of violence in the real world.

During adolescence (age 12 to 17), the middle school to high school years, children become capable of high levels of abstract thought and reasoning, although they rarely use these abilities when watching television, continuing to invest little mental effort. They watch less television than they did when they were younger, and watch less with their families. Their interests at this age tend to revolve around independence, sex and romance, and they develop a preference for music videos, horror movies, and (boys particularly) pornographic videos, which deal with these topics, although usually in negative ways.

Adolescents in middle school and high school are much more likely than younger children to doubt the reality of television content and much less likely to identify with television characters. The small percentage of those who continue to believe in the reality of television and to identify with its violent heroes are the ones likely to be more aggressive, especially if they continue to fantasize about aggressive-heroic themes.

Their superior abstract reasoning abilities and their tendency at this age to challenge conventional authority make adolescents particularly susceptible to imitating some kinds of television violence, crime and portrayals of suicide. However, these imitative acts affect only a small percentage of adolescents.

In a world in which violent television is pervasive and children are susceptible to its effects, parents are the best mediators of their children's viewing.

There are a number of ways parents can limit their children's exposure to violence. Restricting the amount and types of programs children watch is probably the most effective and common means of mediation for children of all ages. However, there are also strategies that are specifically appropriate for children at different ages.

Under normal conditions, parents probably do not need to worry too much about their infants being negatively influenced by television, although they might want to limit their exposure to violence or other portrayals it might be dangerous for an infant to imitate.

Limiting exposure to this kind of TV content is especially wise with toddlers, who are even more prone to imitating what they see on television. Another highly influential action parents can take for toddlers is to examine and regulate their own viewing behaviour, since toddlers are highly influenced by their parents' viewing habits.

Parental mediation to reduce a preschooler's aggression (as well as fears from what they see on television) can include viewing with the child, commenting on content, providing distraction or comfort if the child is frightened, and encouraging or discouraging behaviour they see preschoolers imitating from television.

While restricting viewing is an effective form of parental mediation for younger elementary school aged children, for older children it is more useful for parents to discuss, explain, and challenge television. By doing so, parents can help their children to interpret television material and overcome the effect televised violence has on their attitudes and behaviour. Another positive effect of these strategies is that children invest more mental effort in their watching, becoming more critical and analytical viewers.

Encouraging adolescents to express their opinions and to analyze and question television content is a parental strategy that has been found to reduce adolescents' fears and aggressiveness, as well as to improve their critical approach to the medium.

There is an unfortunate lack of non-violent educational and entertaining programming specifically geared to children. It would not be a difficult challenge to come up with non-violent programming, since it is not the violence itself that attracts viewers. The television industry would do well to create programming specifically aimed at child audiences, taking into account the various approaches to watching television and the interests of each age group.

Although toddlers do not understand a great deal of program content, creating educational programming using such features as animation, children's or women's voices on the sound track, and simplified movements and camera work will likely win them as loyal viewers. A habit of watching educational programs (as opposed to cartoons) will reduce their exposure to violent content and make it more likely that they will watch and benefit from educational television later on, as preschoolers.

For preschoolers, effective programming would include the use of vivid production features and "child-directed speech" (simple sentences spoken slowly, referring to objects that are actually being shown on the screen, and with repetition). These features will improve their attention and understanding and can be used to highlight important features of program content, such as critical plot events.

The elementary school-aged audience has been called the "almost forgotten group" when it comes to targeted programming. Such programming could easily avoid violence, since children at this age are still more attracted to variability and tempo than to violence. Although boys, particularly, seek out male heroes who tend to be violent, it is actually the hero's power (not the violence) that is the attraction. Strong, yet positive, counterstereotypical television characters could be created to fit the bill, since these have proven to equally attract their interest, as effectively as violent heroes.

Programming for adolescents should avoid promoting rape myths and portraying violent behaviour that promises fun, "kicks," or instant notoriety. It might lessen the number of horror and pornographic videos that adolescents watch if television programming were provided that addresses their particular needs and interests.

It is certainly true that television violence does not account for all the causes of children's aggression, and it is also true that some children are a great deal more likely to be affected by television violence than others, and that it is these children who are likely to be potentially more aggressive anyway. But the effect of television violence leads these "at-risk" children to be even more aggressive than they would otherwise be. And although the group especially at risk might be a minority of viewers, they are likely to be the majority of aggressors. This fact makes them, and the violent content of television, worthy of our attention.

Wendy L. Josephson, Ph.D., (Feburary, 1995). Television Violence: A Review of the Effects on Children of Different Ages , source "media awareness network", retrieved from http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/resources/research_documents/reports/violence/tv_violence_child.cfm