GH29914

Nov 14, 2007

Laura Lane, Yahoo Contributor Network

CONCLUSION

Limit the number of TV-watching hours: Stock the room in which you have your TV with plenty of other non-screen entertainment (books, kids' magazines, toys, puzzles, board games, etc.) to encourage kids to do something other than watch the tube. Keep TVs and internet connections out of bedrooms. Turn the TV off during meals. Don't allow kids to watch TV while doing homework. Treat TV as a privilege to be earned — not a right. Establish and enforce family TV viewing rules, such as TV is allowed only after chores and homework are completed.

TV and other electronic media can get in the way of exploring, playing, and interacting with parents and others, which encourages learning and healthy physical and social development.

Have your kids watch public television stations (some programs are sponsored — or "brought to you" — by various companies, although the products they sell are rarely shown). Record programs — without the commercials. Buy or rent children's videos or DVDs.

TV is full of programs and commercials that depict risky behaviors (such as drinking alcohol, doing drugs, smoking cigarettes, and having premarital sex) as cool, fun, and exciting. And often, there's no discussion about the consequences of those actions.

But despite its advantages, too much television can be detrimental: Children who consistently spend more than 4 hours per day watching TV are more likely to be overweight. Kids who view violent acts are more likely to show aggressive behavior but also fear that the world is scary and that something bad will happen to them. TV characters often depict risky behaviors, such as smoking and drinking, and also reinforce gender-role and racial stereotypes.

And although they've banned cigarette ads on television, kids and teens can still see plenty of people smoking on programs and movies airing on TV. This kind of "product placement" makes behaviors like smoking and drinking alcohol seem acceptable. In fact, kids who watch 5 or more hours of TV per day are far more likely to begin smoking cigarettes than those who watch less than the recommended 2 hours a day.

The first 2 years of life are considered a critical time for brain development

we wanted to give you some information that might help you and your team better understand how the media your teenagers are engaging with affects their abilities to learn, grow, and relate in today’s society.

Works Cited

asked black children to choose which baby doll they prefer (black or white), 47% of the children stated the white baby doll was the prettiest, reinforcing that ideals on beauty are shaped at an early age.

Mass media gives indicators to young people about what is considered “normal” and “not-normal,”

When [journalists] report what is normal, they also make an implicit statement about what is abnormal.

Low income families spend more money on television programming than on hobbies, and young people in these homes watch far more hours of television than those of higher income homes where more money is spent on hobbies.

The more exposure to unrealistic violence in media (e.g. games, television, movies), the higher the likelihood for aggression or violence in young people.

for every four violence acts on prime time television, 32 violent acts occur on children’s programs every hour."

As many aggressive teens are perhaps labeled as anti-social or defiant, these music/music video choices can help them identify with a social group.

intensive or excessive [media] viewing can affect a child’s brain and the development of creativity and intelligence by: a) reducing stimulation of parts of the brain that are critical for the development of language, reading and analytic thinking, b) diminishing mental ability and attention, and c) discouraging the development of executive systems needed for regulating attention organization and motivation.

All research has room for error, and should be read knowing that there are always exceptions.

Social media and online gaming groups do not necessarily produce a false sense of friendship. 

"Although a great deal is known about the effects of mass media on other adolescent behaviors, such as eating, smoking and drinking, we know basically nothing about the effects of mass media on adolescent sexual behaviors,"

S. Liliana Escobar-Chaves of the university's Center for Health Promotion and Prevention Research,

But to hazard a guess based on clear evidence that media representations influence teenage eating, smoking and drinking habits, adolescents are almost certainly affected — negatively — by sexual references and images from television, in movies and video games, in music, in magazines and on Web sites.

There is growing concern that youth are accessing media in environments isolated from the supervision or guidance of parents or other adults,"

Despite the advent of V-chips, movie ratings and televised warnings of appropriateness for young people, American teenagers have no trouble getting access to graphic sexual presentations.

"Approximately 47 percent of high school students have had sexual intercourse. Of these, 7.4 percent report having sex before the age of 13, and 14 percent have had four or more sexual partners."

The effect of abstinence-only education pales by comparison with the many graphic messages that portray sexual activity — especially unprotected sex outside of marriage — to be a part of our culture as normal and acceptable as eating a Big Mac or drinking a Coke.

Each year, nearly 900,000 teenage girls in the United States become pregnant (340,000 are 17 or younger). The rates of sexually transmitted diseases are higher among teenagers than among adults, and 35 percent of girls have been pregnant at least once by age 20.

Data suggest that sexually active adolescents are at high risk for depression and suicide,"

"Early sexual experience among adolescents has also been associated with other potentially health-endangering behaviors, such as alcohol, marijuana, and other drug use."

The research indicated that adolescents who watched shows with sexual content tended to overestimate the frequency of certain sexual behaviors and to have more permissive attitudes toward premarital sex.

"On average," it continued, "each hour of programming popular with teens had 6.7 scenes that included sexual topics."

The sexual content of TV is pervasive and increasing.

As for the Internet, one national survey of 10- to-17-year-olds found that one in five had "inadvertently encountered explicit sexual content, and one in five had been exposed to an unwanted sexual solicitation while online."

The report called for better studies to assess the effects of sexuality in the mass media on adolescent beliefs and behavior

The New York Times Company

ed massive amounts of money to purchase air time to run their political campaigns from media companies that are licensed to use the airwaves which are owned by the America

Neither the Democratic Party and the Republican Party is concerned with the average middle-class Americans upon whose backs the prosperity of America was built. Both parties ne

n peopl

corporate donors

icans

ernment Americans need to listen very carefully to the mass media pundits and then realize that six conglomerates control nearly all the media in America. Americans need to listen for what they are not being told is to blindly accept mass media's version of reality. Americans need to stop tuning in to hear the latest titillating gossip about this missing person, that sensational murder and the escapades of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

For Americans to regain control of the

teenagers spend an average of 7.5 hours a day on their smartphone, tablet, or laptop, not including time spent talking or texting

“When we retweet something, we’re not just sharing the information,” Morgan said during the panel discussion. “We’re saying something about ourselves by sharing it.”  Other panelists warned against condemning media and the way it is used by young people. Angela Cook Jackson, another Emerson professor who co-founded eLEEP with Mihailidis, runs a summer workshop on media literacy for high schoolers in the summer.