How Did Mass Media Influence Adolescents and Children in the Last Ten Years? Essay

TV Medias incline on pip-squeak emergence http//www. cleancutmedia. com/tv-shows/tv-medias-influence-on-child-development Several risks to pediatric health are liter altogethery staring children in the face. Its time to call the doctor. Want to share this old, but great article from the Harvard Medical Alumni Bulletin. Very interesting points round how media cuts into many issues much(prenominal) as obesity, eating disorders, attention disorders, fury, sex, and drug use and how Medical Professionals postulate to deeply consider how much media has an influence on the development of these.As this fairly long article is strong written, I go away only if excerpt huge chunks of it. Ive copied out signifi skunkt paragraphs and bolded the main points. apprehend it is helpful. Full ArticleHere. The most important thing weve learned, So utmost as children are concerned, Is never, never, never let Them near your video recording zeal They sit and stare and stare and sit Until th eyre hyp nonized by it Did you ever wonder exactly what This does to your beloved tot? His brain becomes as soft as cheese His actors of thinking rust and freeze He crumbnot thinkhe only sees the Oompa-Loompas in Charlie and the coffee tree Factory TV Media on Child Development The Oompa-Loompas cautionary song about the hypnotic effects of television on children whitethorn have seemed alarmist in 1964 when Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was first published, but now its lyrics seem almost understated. In Roald red grams story, television addict Mike Teavee pays for his obsession by getting shrunk to the size of an actor on a television screen. Dahl exaggerates the effects of excessive cover, but for children glued to media screens today, the consequences whitethorn be to a greater extent insidious and just as hazardous.Decades of research have established that television and other screen mediamovies, the Internet, and video gamesconstitute a powerful environmental influence on childrens health and development, according to the Center on Media and Child Health at Childrens Hospital Boston. Ameri fag end children antique 8 to 18 spend an average of 6 hrs and 21 proceedings daily using mediamore time than they spend in check or with their parents. And the risks of so much time spent in bondage to their screens are serious. More than 2,200 studies have linked media use and aggressive behavior.By age 18, a child will, on average, have witnessed 200,000 acts of violence, including 18,000 murders. Childrens programsshows that atomic number 53 would expect to be free of violenceaverage 14 tempestuous acts per hour, 8 more than adult programs. For adolescents, the influence of violence in media may even prove fatal the top three causes of death among 15- to 19-year-olds all involve accidental or intended violence. Medias Influence on the Mind Like the Oompa-Loompas, Michael Rich 91 recognises the powerful clutch media back have on the mind, especially the mind of a child.So well has research documented the connection between watching violence on television and aggressive behavior, he says, that the correlation is stronger than those linking calcium with bone tightfistedness and passive smoke with lung cancer. Rich, a pediatrician and former filmmaker who worked for cardinal years with the famed Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, directs the Center on Media and Child Health. Much of Richs research has focused on the dangers stemming from the violence depicted on television and, more recently, the violence that permeates video games. single 2004 study by another crowd compared the physiologic responses of adults playing quartette different video games, two with storylines and two without. The researchers found that story-based video games direct to significantly more character and game identification and increased physiological arousal. Other studies have documented how such physiological responses can melt to aggression. If you watch a violent show and a half hour later go to a store where someone cuts you in line, youre more likely to respond aggressively, Rich says. Over time, small incidents pucker and form patterns of violent behavior.What matters is that you learn from what you experience. And by learning, he means the hardwired kind. soul mapping indicates that media violence is processed along primitive survival pathways and stored in long-term memory, he says. In other words, we introduce media violence deeply in our brains. In work with functional magnetic resonance imaging, or functional magnetic resonance imaging, Richs team has discovered that the brain regions activated when viewing violence onscreen are the same ones that light up when those suffering from post-traumatic emphasize disorder relive their traumas. Alvin Poussaint, founder of the Media Center at the Judge baker Childrens Center and an HMS professor of psychiatry, says that the way children learn from television can caus e another form of lasting harm. If children watch edutainmentshows that teach finished song and dancethey set off to associate learning with an entertainment arrange and expect that format when they go to school, he says. But teachers arent waiver to sing and dance for them. So then children complain that school is boring. Compared to the fast-paced, elicit shows theyre used to on television, it is boring.Nothing will meet that standard. goggle box constantly ups the ante. Some of the newest research suggests that television and the multimedia world in which children simultaneously watch MTV, listen to iPods, and chat on the Internet may be contributing to the increase in diagnoses of attention disorders. Rich believes that fMRI studies on attention, which are only now just getting started, will help establish whether a connection exists. Certainly, researchers have found a correlation between media use and transforming. Kids who watch the most television gaint do as well i n school, says Poussaint. television is not the best way to learn its too passive and noninteractive. A 2003 study found that toddlers and older children with screen media in their bedrooms learned to read later and read less than those with no screen media in their rooms. The Oompa-Loompas begin to seem like prophets. Media can be a Good Influence on Development John Livingstone 58, a pediatric psychiatrist at McLean Hospital, an HMS assistant professor, and a consultant to the television industry, is campaigning for PBS to embed emotional literacy in its new programming and for the cable industry to squelch health-risk standards. Television shows can model positive ways for handling feelings, he says. Social learning research shows that when children watch large-hearted characters struggling with decision-making, they can learn better impulse control, especially when they see the realistic results of the choices the characters made. The power of prosocial programming can be s o strong, Livingstone adds, that even violent pithwhen portrayed realistically and in the context of outcomescan be beneficial. If its handled well, he says, violence with consequences can promote socially responsible behavior. permits say a show features a band of kids on a street. In one scenario, a gang member remarks that a passing kid looks like a crybaby and says, Lets punch him out. The group beats him up. In a better scenario, Livingstone says, the gang member remarks that a passing kid looks like a wimp and says, Lets punch him out. But this time a likable gang member speaks up against the plan, then another and another. Half the group takes off in protest. The other half beats the boy up and later faces legal and parental repercussions.The program could retain its dramatic latent hostility while modeling a socially acceptable option in the teenagers world. Change Media Intake, Change Everything Else Strasburger, who researches medias effects on children and adolesc ents at the University of New Mexico, also wants to promote media literacy, but finds it difficult to change over physicians, parents, and teachers that the issue should take priority. When I consulted with the National Parent Teacher Association, he says, its leaders had a hundred concerns on their list, and media literacy was nowhere near the top.They cute to talk about obesity, eating disorders, and bullying, but didnt realize that media mend all those problems. Many parents and teachers believe media have a minor influence. That superpower have been true when they were growing up, but it sure isnt the parapraxis now. Poussaint adds that parents should play an important role. Parents need to watch television with their children and explain whats make-believe, he says. Commercials are especially insidious, because children dont begin to understand the persuasive intent of ads until about age eight. Commercials also pit children against parents.Television tells children a par ticular candy bar will make them blessed and, when parents refuse to allow it, the children see their parents as denying them this happiness. Strasburger says some of this work can be done in school. We need to teach kids skepticism about advertising and television programming, he says. They should understand, for example, why a commercial or show airs when it does. We already have a system in place for teaching media literacy sex and drug education programs in schools. both(prenominal) could incorporate media literacy, and teachers could take the lead.