Nt1310 Unit 1 Essay

Essay 1 According to Roberts and Foehr (2006) 33% of children under six have a television in their room, while 5% of children in the same age group have a personal computer in their room. Those numbers jump to 68% for television and 31% for computers when children reach the age of 8. As those numbers continue to rise and portable media like digital music players, cell phones, and portable video game players become more ubiquitous it is important to examine the possible effects of having media in a child’s bedroom and children using media alone in their room (Gutnick, et al, 2011). One of James Steyer’s (2003) recommendations for raising a child in this media saturated environment is to not put a television or computer in a child’s room,
Digital television expansion during the last decade has also led to a collection of niche networks to launch that focus only on a particular demographic or program-type, like Nicktoons which only focuses on animation, and Nick Jr. which focuses on preschool content. This expansion of options for children’s content has convinced some members of Congress that applying public money to any media would be a waste, especially since networks like Nick Jr., through the influence of PBS, have started to list the educational focuses of each show on their website and before the show airs (nickjr.com, 2011). Even though shows on other networks, especially preschool programming, have taken a more educational stance they are still a part of commercial television where the network must worry about ratings and appeasing advertisers to make revenue from commercials. This concern over ratings and commercial revenue overshadows the network’s concern for providing quality, educational content for children. PBS existence as a content producer, and competitor to the commercial networks, forces the commercial networks to attempt to rise up and match the quality of PBS’s children’s