Television Should Be Prohibited to Children

Television should be prohibit to children
Television as a media tool is popular around the world. With its popularity across all age groups comes the question of whether or not children should be prohibited from watching television. I believe that children should not be allowed to watch television for extended periods of time because it has many negative side effects. I will explain the three major negative effects—that is bad for children’s health like causing obesity, myopia and waste time in order to affect their study and less communication to the others—in this essay.
It may be argued that allowing children to watch television may actually provide some cognitive benefits. There is no doubt that children can learn about knowledge of animals and plants from the nature shows, get the news about the world to open their eyesight on the evening news and made them relaxing from the funny shows or cartoon—of course, TV is a good educator and entertainment tool. However, compared to the undesirable influence to the children, the arguments cannot hold the water. The nature shows and cartoon programs, as known to us, are performed at fixed time that some children may not watch television on this period or they don’t like the program sometimes. What if they change the program with one full of violence or other inappropriate information? How sure we can be whether the violence would make a bad impression on their mind, or if they lean bad behaviors like drinking and smoking from the television? It is commanded, “The impact of TV violence may be immediately evident in the child 's behavior or may surface years later” from children and violence. (2 002, No. 13). Children cannot tell the difference between incorrect things and have less control of them when learning from the television. Thus, it is dangerous to children to learn bad behaviors from the television because these behaviors may destroy their life. To watching television, they may even stay up, which children would waste lots of time that they can’t finish their homework on time or have no consciousness on the next day’s class. All in all, television’s negative influence to children cannot be ignored.
It is obvious that watching television has bas impact for children, which can cause obesity and myopia that ruining their eyes. The first is increasing obesity to them. Why it can cause obesity due to two aspects. For one hand, they would like to eat more snack foods such as potato chips and empty-calorie soft drinks when they are watching TV. They pay more attention to the program than how much they have eaten. They are also influenced by the advertisement about junk food and fast food from the television, which make them eat more and become fat. For another hand, it takes a lot of time to watching television that takes theirs time of daily outing. What they eat cannot be digested, so the food becomes fat and energy that is stored in their body. Furthermore, for long time siting in front of screen, their body cannot move that reduce the metabolism, so fat stacked instead of burning and lead to obesity at the end. Unfortunately, there are many risks with the obesity. According to the repot of Obesity to the Children and Teen (Nov. 18, 2008), the obesity may increase the rate of heart disease, high blood pressure and other physical problems. Myopia is also a major problem caused by watching television. Because of long time stare at the screen, the eye would feel tired that it’s easily cause the myopia. Some TV characters set a bad example to the children, of which depict risky behaviors like violence, smoking, alcohol, sexuality and other unhealthy information. They may have deep impression on this information and assume whether these information acceptable or safe that may overwhelming to their understanding. Some of them may learn this kind of behavior which was not only bad for their health, but for their development. “TV can cause the developing mind to experience unnatural levels of stimulation”, said by Dr. Dimitri Christakis (2004), the author of the University of the Seattle. It shows, for instance, the smoking can cause the lung cancer and also bad for the people’s health near smoker that make people have to smoke harmful gas. What’s more, if they become violence that learn from the television, they may drop out of school or go to the prison that would leave a black point on their life and hardly find a good job to have a better life. In other words, watching television can cause obesity, myopia and takes the potential problem like smoking and violence that also bad for their health and development.
Children who have less control on watching television would waste lots of time on the study and less communication to others. When they focus on the TV program, they wouldn’t have interest in other activities even can’t hear what their parents’ word. They may pay less attention on the study and get lower grade. Thus, their parents want to communicate with them about their homework or the things in their daytime, while children only care about the TV program wouldn’t chat to their parents, which would cause serious relationship between parents and their children because they can’t communicate to the each other. They also have less chance to communicate with their friends because they spent their time on watching television. As a consequence, they prefer to stay at home and watch TV rather than go through a vicious circle—watching more TV causes less communication and lower grades, which leads children to watch more TV consequently repeating the pattern. Hence, the time spent on watching television takes away many important activities like reading, homework, family interaction and social communication, of which waste lots of time.
Although it has advantages of watching television like making relaxing and learn natures from TV, children still can learn a lot from books and school if they save the time of watching television. Because of its negative aspects such as causing obesity, myopia and waste the time of study and social activities, children shouldn’t be allowed watching television.
This world has so much to show to the children such as they can go to mountains, museums and other countries. As you can see, there are many activities available to children besides watching television.
References
Influence on Children Media - History of Media for Children, General Considerations, Studies of Media Influence, Domains of Influence, Recommendations http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2212/Media-Influence-on-Children.html#ixzz13jcazO00
American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. (2002, November). Children and tv violence. Retrieved from http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/facts_for_families/children_and_tv_violence
Obesity to the Children and Teen (Nov. 18, 2008), American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Web site: http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/facts_for_families/obesity_in_children_and_teens
Dr. Dimitri Christakis (6 April, 2004), Watching TV 'is bad for children ', BBC News, Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3603235.stm

References: Influence on Children Media - History of Media for Children, General Considerations, Studies of Media Influence, Domains of Influence, Recommendations http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2212/Media-Influence-on-Children.html#ixzz13jcazO00 American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. (2002, November). Children and tv violence. Retrieved from http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/facts_for_families/children_and_tv_violence Obesity to the Children and Teen (Nov. 18, 2008), American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Web site: http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/facts_for_families/obesity_in_children_and_teens Dr. Dimitri Christakis (6 April, 2004), Watching TV 'is bad for children ', BBC News, Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3603235.stm