Children and T.V.

“The amount of television usage by children reached an eight-year high, with kids ages 2 to 5 watching the screen for more than 32 hours a week on average and those ages 6 to 11 watching more than 28 hours.” - Matea Gold

The time that children spend sitting in front of a T.V. is the highest it’s ever been, why? Not only are the children lazy, but so are the parents. The parents think it’s a good idea to stick their kids in front of a T.V. when they have nothing better to do with them. Not all T.V. is bad; some is educational and can sometimes help in the long run.

Not only are they spending time watching T.V. they are also playing video games. A lot of video games involve violence, which can sometimes lead to violence in the children’s behavior. The more they play and watch, the more they are expected to have bad behaviors.

“Kids ages 2 to 5 spent an average of 3 hours and 47 minutes a day watching television in the fourth quarter of 2008, up from 3 hours and 40 minutes in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to Nielsen. Older children watched an average of 3 hours and 20 minutes a day, up from 3 hours and 17 minutes.” This means that kids are missing out on everything else in their lives. 2 to 5 year olds should be running around outside as much as possible, or playing with their little toys. They are the most likely to follow whatever is happening on the screen. Older children are also missing out. This means there is less time to spend studying or doing homework, and if old enough, a stable job. I myself never watch T.V. anymore, although when I was little, I went through a stage of doing nothing but playing video games, violent video games at that. But the video games have not had a big enough impact on my life to where I’m a violent person.

T.V. is also shown during elementary schools. I recall having to sit in the cafeteria at a young age and having to remain silent so everyone could watch Reading Rainbow, which was supposedly an educational show. Also in restaurants, there is TVs. In Colton’s there are 6 TVs total, for the guests to watch while they enjoy their dinner. Also, while sharing the family dinner at home sometimes, the family comes into the kitchen just to get their food and then disperse out among the house to all watch different shows, not spending bonding time that they could together.

Spending more than a day a week watching T.V. is just a little bizarre. There are so many things that kids are missing out on that could be life changing to them. They just need parents and other help from friends to step away from the T.V. just for a few hours a day that they usually watch it, and do something productive.