Tv’s effects on children

TV’S EFFECTS ON CHILDREN Television is the cheapest and most popular form of entertainment nowadays. There is almost a TV set in every household. People of all ages can use it to entertain themselves at any time they like. It is clear that television is very useful in our life because it helps us not only to relax our minds but also to get knowledge of all areas of human life. However, nobody could deny its negative effects on its viewers especially children. Watching TV constantly might lead children to several useless habits such as ignoring useful activities, having bad behaviors and violent actions, and having a poor health. The first negative effect of television on children is making them ignore useful activities. As children are addicted to watching TV, they spend most of their time watching it. As a result, they spend less time on other activities such as reading and studying. Some children read books or do their homework in front of the TV set. Others do their homework quickly so that they can have more time to watch TV. In addition, many children like spending their leisure time staying at home and sitting in front of a TV set. They do not care outside activities that can benefit them more. They are not also interested in enjoying their hobbies or taking part in a club where they have a chance to contact people and enrich their personality. Therefore, they cannot develop the art of conversation and lack the communication with the outside world. This makes them become shy and less self-confident when contacting people around. The second negative effect of television on children is making children get bad behavior and violent actions. Because of the fact that there is a variety of TV programs nowadays and it is not possible to enforce any censorships on them, children are easily affected by them. They imitate impolite, immoral behavior and coarse language of bad characters in movies. Especially, actions and violent movies from foreign counties gradually make children fond of solving problems by violence. They tend to fight each other to be considered stronger than others. The last negative effect is leading children to a poor health. Because children spend much time on television, they participate less or even ignore physical exercises such as doing morning exercises, jogging, swimming, playing sport, which are useful for their health. This leads to unbalanced physical development and makes children usually feel tired and sluggish. Moreover, they usually have rushed meals and less sleep, so they may have some health problems such as stomachache, headache. Also, watching television can lead to poor posture, eyestrain and shortsighted eyes. In conclusion, although television is a useful kind of entertainment, it has caused great effects on children in regard to their hobby, their behavior and their health. Therefore, in order to reduce its negative effects, it is parents that control their children’s watching TV programs so that they just watch useful programs. Besides, parents should pay much attention to their children’s study and entertainment by giving them definite timetable and encouraging them to watch programs for children as well as banning them to watch the ones for adults.