TV'S EFFECT ON CHILDREN.   Term Paper ID:19680 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Pro-TV stance. Why TV is positive influence. Exposure to real-life situations to prepare them, using [Social Animal] as support. TV as essential educational tool ([Sesame Street]).... More...

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Paper Abstract: Pro-TV stance. Why TV is positive influence. Exposure to real-life situations to prepare them, using [Social Animal] as support. TV as essential educational tool ([Sesame Street]). Paper Introduction: Television's effects on children are a largely debated topic. Everyone seems to have research reporting either the "negative" or "positive" effects of television on children. Every parent's worst nightmare is of raising a six-year-old TV addict. He watches TV in the morning before school. He gets home and sits down right in front of the TV. He has an extra dose after dinner to calm him down for bed. He has trouble reading and exhibits restless and combative behavior in class. Is this monster really in existence, or are the harmful effects of TV on children exaggerated? This report will discuss why TV is a very postive influence on children, and it will express how it helps them become better adjusted "social animals" by exposing them to real-life situations before they have the pain and shock of encountering them unprepared. Relevant concepts from Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Television's effects on children are a largely debated topic.Everyone seems to have research reporting either the "negative" or"positive" effects of television on children. Relevantconcepts from Aronson's The Social Animal will be reviewed to support thisconclusion, as well as definitions between "propaganda" and "education." Aconclusion will discuss why TV has become this essential educational toolin the information age. The first-season study investigated Sesame Street's impact on the development ofspecific cognitive skills, with particular attention to the moderatingeffects of age, sex, prior achievement level, home background conditions(including Spanish spoken at home), and the measurable benefits of viewingthe series at home and in preschool classes. The Social Animal. A. He hastrouble reading and exhibits restless and combative behavior in class. LindaJackson and Thomas Cash found that men and women described as androgynouswere actually perceived as being more likable and better adjusted thanthose who acted only in ways consistent with traditional gender roles"(Aronson, 1988, 248). For the purposes of the data analysis, the samplewas divided at the end of the 26-week broadcast season into quartiles,according to the children's frequency of viewing Sesame Street (Ball &Bogatz, 197 , 33). With the divorce rate at an all-time high, maybetelevision is becoming responsible for allowing men and women to grow anddevelop in their role as "human being," not "male" or "female." The amount of research associated with Sesame Street--research intoproduction issues, educational effects, theoretical issues--is withoutequal in the entire field of educational television. However,many educators complain that children are more aggressive in schoolbehavior, less able to retain attention, and are having trouble with theirreading. This report will discuss why TV is a very postiveinfluence on children, and it will express how it helps them become betteradjusted "social animals" by exposing them to real-life situations beforethey have the pain and shock of encountering them unprepared. Even so, as societychanges, significant questions continue to arise, and Children's TelevisionWorkshop continues to research them. He has an extra dose after dinner to calm him down for bed. Freeman & Co.Ball, S., & Bogatz, G. Zoglin (199 , 76) reports that SesameStreet may actually be to blame for a lot of children's trouble inlearning: The frenetic pace of TV has seeped into the classroom. Adding to this is the new technologyof the VCR which makes favorite programming and rented videos available forrepeated viewings. Complex statistical analyses were conducted todetermine whether to attribute observed differences to interactions withother factors, or to viewing Sesame Street (Ball & Bogatz, 197 , 51). Children in the "frequent viewers" group scored 4 points higheron the post-test of 2 3 items than a comparable group of children who hadnever watched the show. Children are expecting a show. He gets home and sits down right in front of theTV. All in all, television gets positivemarks for affecting social interaction for the better. The first year of Sesame Street: An evaluation. Why does learning--a task which is supposed to impart knowledge--have to be dull, long-winded and boring? Sesame Street reinforces the TV-inspired notion that education must be fast paced and entertaining. Time, 75-6.----------------------- 9 Frequent viewers performed better than infrequentviewers and also made the greatest gains from pre-test to post-test. Yet, eventhough they view television as a "plug-in drug," the commonly heldresearcher's view that too much viewing may hurt schoolwork remainsunproven. He watches TV in themorning before school. They did not prove to be, as some had expected, bored, restless, or passive participants in the formal classroom (Bogatz & Ball, 1971, 131).One component of the second-year study entailed evaluating the educationaleffects of the second year's curriculum on children who had not beenpreviously exposed to Sesame Street. ReferencesAronson, E. However, thereis also the opinion that a more informed, less innocent child, will makebetter decisions in society, and will have less illusions about realitywhen he must deal and interact within it. S. According to Zoglin (199 , 75), "The average child willhave watched 5, hours of TV by the time he enters first grade and 19, by the end of high school--more time than he will spend in class." With TVas a big role model, children are exposed to the outside world earlier andmore than ever before. There is an excellent example to show that television is verybeneficial and educational to children, at least in human and social terms. New York: W. In this way a new level ofharmony can be achieved in society. This is because, rightfrom their home, children are able to explore the "Big Blue Marble" (as onepopular children's series referring to the Earth in its title was named) astheir grandparents couldn't in a lifetime of travel. It isimportant to note that, whether we call it propaganda or education,persuasion is a reality" (Aronson, 1988, 7 ). In addition, no institution hasbeen blamed as violently and as much from just about everyting fromdecreased attention span, to increase in street violence. Except for school and the family, no factor plays a larger guidinghand in shaping American children than TV. Statistically significant gains wereobtained in the following areas: function of body parts, naming geometricforms, roles of community members, matching by form, naming letters, lettersounds, sight reading, recognizing numbers, naming numbers, counting,relational terms, classification, and sorting (Bogatz & Ball, 1971, 126). (199 , 15 October). Skills given the most time and attention on the programwere the skills learned the best (Ball & Bogatz, 197 , 87). The second year of Sesame Street: A continuing evaluation. (1971). Yet, as we learn to accept anotherperson's out-of-role behavior, so too will our own out-of-role behaviorbecome increasingly accepted, and we will become freer to fulfill ourpotential as human beings" (Aronson, 1988, 25 ). Every parent's worstnightmare is of raising a six-year-old TV addict. A teacher who is going into a lengthy explanation of an arithmetic problem will begin to lose the audience after a while. This is because people are finally allowing women to become "free" insociety. It does not have to be, but lazyprofessionals who teach in this manner make it so. Princeton: Educational Testing Service.Zoglin, R. Television can exposechildren to things their parents hid from, i.e., the secrets of adulthood.Some feel this will take away the innocence of the child. However, whether it makes them smarter or notdepends on what one views the medium as propagandist tool or educator?Aronson makes this distinction between the two: "In practice, whether aperson regards a particular course of instruction as educational orpropagandistic depends, to a large extent, on his or her values. Women are now allowed to have careers, and men are now allowed toclean the house and cook dinner without being thought "feminine." Only inthe world of television, where we first get the most shockingtransformations and changes that are occurring in society, could thesetypes of attitude changes occur on a mass level. The research that has been done on the beneficial educationaleffects of children from watching Sesame Street totally refutes thistraditional argument also. Sesame Street is a continuingexperiment and is treated as such by this research organization. Thefinding that children who watched more gained more held true across age,sex, geographical location, socioeconomic status, mental age, whether thedominant language was English or Spanish, and whether children watched athome or at school. The second-year follow-up investigation conducted by ETS with 283 disadvantagedchildren from the first study indicated that: Sesame Street graduates who were frequent viewers and who entered school during the show's second year were, according to results from teacher ranking questionnaires, better prepared than their non- or low-viewing classmates, and more important, adapted well to the school experience. As Aronson relates,"There is, however, good reason to believe that popular conceptions ofappropriate behavior for men and women are becoming more flexible. Is TV ruining our children? There is a another veryspecific reason why TV is good for children. Television is a great benefactor to children's development. All children were pre- and post-tested on an extensive, ETS-constructed testing instrument designed to measure performance in thefollowing skill areas: knowledge of the alphabet and numbers, name of bodyparts, reocgnition of forms, knowledge of relational terms, and sorting andclassification skills. Sesame Street makes kids like school only if school is like Sesame Street.However, children watch Sesame Street because it makes learning enjoyableand fun. Princeton: Educational Testing Service.Ball, S., & Bogatz, G. However, there are opponents to this argument regarding the merits ofSesame Street's effects on children. Aronson does not miss how thisacceptance of other people's "different" behavior enables us to explore andaccept our own "differences." The realization that all of us--men, women,boys, girls, blacks, Latinos, Asians, whites, rich, poor--are the victimsof confining stereotyped roles. Many popular stereotypical images are crumbling around the country(women as weak, homosexuals as effeminate and bad, blacks as lazy thieves,etc.) due to the educational effects of television. When Zoglin isreferring to children wanting school to be like Sesame Street, he is sayingwithout knowing it, "They want it to be enjoyable." Learning should beenjoyable. They blame this on television's negative effects. (1988). Isthis monster really in existence, or are the harmful effects of TV onchildren exaggerated? The ultimate finding was that children who watched the most learnedthe most. Television may be responsible for not only making children knowit can be, and subsequently raising their education levels as a result, butit also might be making teachers aware that they will only hold interest aslong as what they are teaching--and how they teach it--is interesting andenjoyable. Among the most frequently cited documents inthe research literature on children's television, and the most elaboratestudies to date on the effects of television, are the Educational TestingService (ETS) evaluations of Sesame Street's first two seasons. Anything that makes, what Aronson calls "TheSocial Animal," more able to adapt and be at harmony with his surroundingswill only make him more socially integrated. (197 , October). A. However, no matter what rules, regulations orcontent restrictions are placed upon the medium, one thing is true:children watch a lot of television. Critics rangefrom religious conservatives to consumer groups for children, like Actionfor Children's Television. Sesame Street also helps children prepare for school. The youngergeneration is really the first to have this technology since they day theywere born and we are just now seeing that the early learning of some oflife's lessons may make one more equipped and emotionally prepared tohandle life successfully. What is proven is that TV has helped educate children better,earlier, and it has made them more prepared to enjoy a fulfilled life--onewhich allows them to form their own and highest concept of their "self."With alternatives to choose from on TV, they can pick and choose whichbehaviors are the ones they most wish to adopt. It is a new technology thatmakes learning more fun, faster, and even more colorful than the oldmethods of teaching available: books, plays, lectures, etc. For allits supposed negative effects, scant research exists to prove any of themtrue. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.