Positive Effects On Television

Not all aspects on TV are negative. There are some positive effects on TV, too. If children view good TV educational programs then they can learn many news things easily. TV is considered to be a medium for education. They learn about places they have never traveled to and animals they have never seen before and they can learn about new scientific discoveries.

Choosing the right TV programs for a child is very important. This is one way that he/she can learn useful things. The right shows would usually help him/her develop his/her imagination. Good TV shows also teach family values.

Another good thing is TV on DVD. They allow families to watch shows that are appropriate for children and they save time by recording shows and skipping commercials when they watch them later without having to view commercials.

There are some positive effects with commercials, too. Some TV commercials tell an important message that is "Stay fit. 'Cause you never know." On these commercials, children are usually seen chasing an ice cream truck or running after a card game blown in the wind. These situations make them use energy.

People who create these commercials say they want their children to exercise. It helps children stay in shape. In Canada, it was found that children don't do enough exercise and just 10% of 15,800 schools have good daily P.E. programs.

Television Poem

TV release me
Get me off your spell
TV, can't you see?
I feel like I'm in spell

I'd rather be
Out free
Instead of being
Trapped inside

There's so much more
Set me free
Let me live
My life

TV, I'll make a plan to
Turn you off today
I'll laugh and play my day away
And enjoy my time outside

I'm home again
And there you are
Staring back
From the wall

I'll turn you on
Since it's been so long
Now I'm back
Under your spell

Interviews

Today I interviewed three people about TV addiction: my friend Azalia, my cousin Alanah, and my cousin Ally. I asked them about their views on TV.

1) What's your favorite TV show?
Azalia: Ugly Betty.
Alanah: Family Guy.
Ally: America's Next Top Model.

2) How many hours do you think you watch TV during the day?
Azalia: 3.
Alanah: 9-10.
Ally: On the weekend, 5 hours but not in a row.

3) When you're watching TV and someone asks you a question, are you able to answer or are
you too engrossed into the TV?
Azalia: Sometimes I answer.
Alanah: I'm too engrossed into the TV.
Ally: I'm able to answer.

4) Do you think TV is too violent?
Azalia: At times it could be but other times it could be comedy.
Alanah: No, I think it's AWESOME!
Ally: Sometimes it is. Depends on the show.

5) What does TV mean to you?
Azalia: TV is a times to have fun and know what's happening in the real world.
Alanah: Without TV, I would be bored.
Ally: A way to keep me entertained if I'm bored.

6) Do you think you're addicted to TV?
Azalia: Yes.
Alanah: OH YES.
Ally: No, probably not.

7) Do you think TV is good for you? Why or why not?
Azalia: Sometimes it's good and it relieves stress.
Alanah: Yes. Without TV, we wouldn't know a lot of stuff.
Ally: Depends on the show because if it's an educational show on Discovery Channel, then
you can learn from it. If it's a bad show, then it can lead to negative things.


Thank you, ladies.

Is Television Linked To ADHD?

Excessive TV viewing has been known for increasing violent behavior and obesity in children. Researchers saw that by age 7, a child may have attention problems. Every day a child watches TV, it increases a child's risk of attention problems. An example is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

According to these findings, Carolyn A. McCarty, Ph.D, saw that efforts "to limit television viewing in early childhood may be warranted." Based on this, a recommendation is that parents should NOT let their children who are younger than 2 watch TV due to concerns that may affect early brain growth and social, emotional, and cognitive skills development. Parents should set limits on TV viewing and help their children develop "media literacy skills" for children older than 2.

Dr. McCarty says that "Attention problems include impulsivity, restlessness, and difficulty concentrating. We did not use a diagnostic test to assess whether the children had clinically evident ADHD but instead looked at the degree of attention problems their parents reported they had."

As a child's brain continues to develop rapidly, ADHD typically manifests in children as they continue to grow. By age 7, 10% of children have developed attention problems. Limiting young children's exposure to TV may reduce a child's risk of developing ADHD.

http://www.neuropsychiatryreviews.com/may04/npr_may04_excessiveTV.html

Gender Roles And Television-Females

With TV, women have traits such as cooperation or emotionality. ''Good women" are the ones known as domesticated, gentle, and sensitive. "Bad women," on the other hand, are rebellious and selfish. The women on TV are younger than men mostly, basically under age 30. If they are over 30, they are seen as housewives, mothers, secretaries, or nurses.

On TV, women are shown in the more domestic settings and less powerful than men. With TV, they are less attentive than men. There has been more female voice-overs for ads mainly for food, household products, and care products, like makeup. In recent years, there has been a total increase with women as news reporters.

The girls' behavior in TV ads are more likely to be passive. It was recommended that they watch male-dominated programs because they will become loyal to the more 'gender fair' programs. Their commercials usually deal with dolls, housekeeping equipment, and vanity-related products. This may help them develop nurturing skills. The world of TV commercials is made up of approximately 40% females.

Compared to the boys' TV commercials, the girls' commercials have gentle background music and frequent fades. Females are often shown talking on the phone or reading.

When women are viewing news programs, they prefer to see the local news rather than the national news. It reflects on women's sense of domestic responsibilty. They want to keep an eye on a local crime.

Gender Roles And Television-Males

With TV, men are more dominant, violent, and powerful than women. They like to emulate many characteristics "through action and aggression." Men on TV drink, drive, smoke, do athletic things, and make more plans.


With TV advertisements, men are shown in more occupations than women. They are more likely to be shown advertising cars or business products and are more likely to be shown outdoors or in business settings. They are more often portrayed as "authorities." As far as ads go, many men gain authority. There has been less male voice-overs with commercials. Their voice-overs are associated with a wide range of products.


Men usually prefer to watch TV with full attention in silence. Fathers who become engrossed into TV programs are where they are less responsive to the other members of their family. They are the ones who are in control of deciding what the family should view on TV. The remote control device is considered as effectively symbolic of their power of choice over programs. This is like the male power in ones' home.


Boys usually tend to be the dominant ones for many modern TV ads. The ads aimed at boys represents far more activity and aggressive behavior and boys are tended to be loud. Boys are usually seen as active or rational. Their ads contain many active toys, varied scenes, and loud music sounds. An example of a traditional male activity they can engage in is causing trouble.



There are a lot of personalities seen in varying degrees in people. Not all men are considered to be aggressive, assertive, risk-taking, etc. Every masculinity culture varies differently by groups. This may be according to ethnicity or even age.

Men dominate the sports programs and violent programs on TV. Many sports programs define men in relation to strength or discipline. The violent programs have men causing trouble by getting arrested or in jail.

Percentages Of Television, 2001-2002

2001

Number of TV sets in U.S. households-248 million

Percentage of households with at least 1 TV-98.2%

Average number of TVs per home-2.4

Annual payroll for employees of over 6,000 cable TV networks and program distribution firms in the U.S.-$11.7 billion

Number of television broadcasting networks and stations in the U.S.-1,937

2002

Percentage of adults who said they watched TV-94.3%

Estimated average monthly rate for cable TV-$34.71

ALSO................... older Americans were glued to the tube than any other group (97 percent).

Television And Couch Potatoes

The term "couch potato" is refered to someone who spends most of his or her free time sitting or lying on a couch. The stereotype refers to an overweight person who spends a lot of time watching TV. Since so many people are watching TV these days, they are considered couch potatoes.

Researchers found that a couch potato lifestyle can be a serious health hazard. Being a couch potato in someone's free time can make them a decade older biologically than someone who is active physically. People who don't exercise during their spare time have shorter telomeres compared to active people. This previously showed that obesity may shorten telomere to approximately 10 years.

Being a couch potato can also increase the risk of heart disease. Some of the factors to heart diseases are watching TV and knowing every show from morning to night, eating high cholesterol foods, and increasing obesity.

These days, half of the children walk to school and so many children stop playing sports because they want to be couch potatoes and watch TV.

Bad For Your Brain

Pscyhologists have found that watching too much TV is considered to be "bad for your brain" and it makes someone feel tired and depressed. It feels like that it relaxes someone but it actually tires and agitates your brain. Many brain scans show that the TV inhabits someone's thinking brain. Within the thirty to forty five seconds of the start of a person watching TV, the critical part of the brain shuts down leaving us less "the normal human."

Like a magic genie, TV hypnotizes for its own ends. A person watching too much TV makes them fat, lazy, and uninteresting. When being asked about their personal lives, there is little or nothing to report and no stories to tell unless it's about the TV shows they watch. Nothing new or exciting will happen to someone since they watch so much TV. It's like being isolated.

The TV makes a person have low self-esteem and their brain cells can be killed. Because of the TV, people are simple-minded.

Viewing Hours Should Be Kept!

Someone should keep track of the viewing hours. Parents should keep a record of how much TV their children watch. If they watch TV for a long time, then they may be quite surprised at the number of hours a week are spent in front of a box. They will be in a better position to institute the needed changes once a parent knows the extent of the problem.

The TV should not be used as the "electronic babysitter." A child should not get into the habit of using the TV has a babysitter no matter how busy he/she is. Instead, a child should come up with some active pastimes that he/she can pursue when a parent can't supervise. Also, a week's worth a TV watching should be kept.

The "No-TV on school nights" rule should be tried as an experiment. School nights are school homework and not for TV. According to experts "This is an easy rule to enforce." In a family meeting, this rule should be discussed so a child knows why the rule is so important. Necessarily, children won't watch TV all weekend just to make up for what they missed on the week nights.

A TV set does NOT belong in a child's bedroom unless (unless a parent wants to lose control of how and when they use it). Background temptation should be switched off because children should be discouraged from leaving the TV on as a background noise since it's usually too stimulating visually. Children could be watching instead of just listening. If they want to hear something when doing other things, a record or the radio should be played instead.

Three Good Ways To Eliminate Television Addiction

#1-The TV should be replaced with family time. If someone is addicted to the TV, he/she should take a break from it to do things with his/her family. Some good family activites are going outside and taking a walk or playing a board game. ALSO: A list of family activites should be made. There are usually endless possibilities once someone frees his/her TV time.

#2-The TV should be ditched. A good strategy to do is someone should give his/her TV away to a friend or needy person who doesn have one. It takes a lot of courage like quitting smoking.

#3-TV time should be scheduled. Every week, someone should spend at least 10-15 minutes looking through the TV guide selecting the shows he/she wants to watch for the entire week. Viewing time should be limited to an hour each day and the shows should be scheduled. This forces someone to make their own choices.

What The Television Commercials Do For Us

A TV commercial (also known as an advertisement) is a span of TV programming that is produced and paid for by a certain organization that carries a message. Many TV commercials include songs or melodies which remains in the minds of heavy TV viewers for a long span after the commercial. Some of these commercials can take over our lives because they are telling people to buy the product/brand. In America, TV commercials are considered to be one of the most effective mass-market advertising formats and are reflected by high prices the TV networks charge. For example, the Super Bowl (held annually and viewed by 90 million viewers) is well-known for its commercial advertisements. As of February 2008, it was found that the average cost of a single 30 second TV entry has reached to over $2 million. TV commercials are being identified by an Industry Standard Commercial Identifier (ISCI) code. Today, a majority of commercials run in approximately 15-second increments.

TV commercials can be repeatedly broadcasted over many weeks, months, and/or years. Because of that, their production studios spend huge sums of money in its production of a single 20-30 TV spot. An interesting fact is that many film directors directed television commercials as a way to gain exposure and earn a paycheck. For example, in 1984, Ridley Scott, who directed films such as Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, Matchstick Men, and Kingdom Of Heaven, directed a TV commercial for the Apple Macintosh computer.

Many TV commercials are considered as an annoyance for some reasons. The main reason is the sound volume of advertising appears to be higher than regular programming. The increasing number of commercials are secondary annoyance factors. The third reason is increasing the ability for TV advertising that prompt the campaigns by everyone whether it's cell-phone companies, fast food restaurants, etc.

Serious Consequences

TV addiction is a "blot of the real world" and can lead to many serious consequences. One of the consequences is laziness. It can lead to obesity which leads to many long term health problems. When people watch TV, they may lose their track of sense and/or time and they become distant from reality. In moderation, TV helps a person from a stressful day. A good solution to this is that someone should give up TV and change their relaxing hobby into reading, writing, or sewing, which are productive hobbies. TV even provides a reinforcement degree which makes people return to the TV. TV causes domestic tension but it does not cause crime and/or death. It also distorts time with social relations and harms academic success.

Television And Violence

For decades, scientists have studied the effects of TV but mainly focusing on watching if violence on TV connects with real life violence. In the present, much of today's TV programming is violent. Viewing of TV violence by children causes aggressiveness. In fact, a single TV program being watched may increase aggressiveness. There are three major effects on children seeing violence on TV which are:

-They may become less sensitive to pain or suffering of others.

-They may be more fearful of the world around them.

-They may be more likely to behave in aggressive ways.

An interesting fact is that the average American child will have watched over 100,000 acts of violence on TV by the time he/she is 13 years old. Parents are often working and children have a lot of unsupervised time. Researchers have found that children's TV shows have approximately 20 violent acts per hour. They found many differences between children who watch violent shows and children who watch non-violent shows. The children who watch violent shows argue or disobey and are considered less willing to wait for things than the ones who watch the non-violent shows.

Researchers have looked at the children's behaviors in areas before and after the introduction of TV. In the 1970s, they compared aggression levels in first and second graders, one with access to TV and one with no TV access because of a mountain range. When the mountain town received TV, the viewing increased by approximately 160%.

Introduction

My name is Amanda Rogers. I am pretty concerned about how many people in America are getting addicted to the TV. Watching TV can turn into an addiction and it's a problem according to our society.

The average person usually spends approximately three to five hours a day siiting in front of a TV and it's half of their leisure time. Although TV is education and entertaining, it may substitute social interaction with friends and family and physical exercise such as walking, running, playing a sport, and stretching.

A lot of TV viewing can affect children with their weights. They'd rather be not active in any way and gain weight. There are many growing children who do not spend a lot of time getting decent exercise they need. This leads to them becoming overweight. The TV even keeps children from their poor eating habits since they are not exposed to the commercials for unhealthy snack foods such as soda, microwave popcorn, and canned soup.

Another reason why parents should turn the TV off from their children is because children also should do things to better their lives such as reading and/or doing their school homework. The problem is parents are not mandating how long the TV should be on. If children are reading or doing homework, the TV is on and it shouldn't be. It's very important that parents should spend time helping their children develop their own reading and comprehension skills instead of leaving the TV all the time. Parents should select shows that they'll allow their children to watch.

The TV also makes people stressed out and overwhelmed. People do not have energy for anything except for, of course, watching TV and they are like living in a dreadful, shocking cycle and they should take a break from the TV for a week and they should see what happens to their lives and they could change.

Researchers have noted that people find the TV to be "relaxing" and it helps them forget about "their own lives." Heavy viewers get trapped watching TV.