Assignment 3. Argumentation.

                        Harmful Effects of Media Use on Children and Adolescents

Since the introduction of radio and television, our modern lives have embraced the prosperity of media use with television shows, video games, movies, and music. They have become essential parts of our lives. Although many people believe that media provides us with all the good things, another great part consider media is the source of problems. Media use is potentially harmful because of its dangerous influences on children and adolescents like violence and aggression, sexual matters and health problems. 

From the beginning of media use – radio and television broadcasting – David Sarnoff, President of The Radio Corporation of America, New York glamorized the potential effects of television which could offer human-beings distant eyesight. People would be able to extend their visions in far-away lands that they couldn’t visit; therefore, they would see and widen their knowledge quickly. Television, combined with radio invention, empowered humankind in exchanging his voice and image to others all over the world. The enchanting of radio had brought incredible aural effects from music, story-telling, instant-news to everyone; yet the strength of visibility helped enhance emotions of drama, live news, and on-going sporting events. Radio-television lifted people to cultural development with good music, dancing, painting, and drama. Politicians would also have effective means to send their messages to citizens with their active motions and persuading data from charts. Marine and airplane had better night-views alongside clear instructors’ voices. Radios and televisions brought up the need of freedom to discuss and to be treated fairly for everyone. Thanks to these first media inventions, students could have interesting sound-motion lessons in their classes. Until now, some other benefits of media use have been proved, such as: fostering knowledge, connectedness, and health information. As pediatricians, Strasburger, M.D and Hogan, M.D stated in their research that screen media could help children learn numbers and letters, teach them empathy, show them different cultural perspectives, and other interpersonal skills. Likewise, social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Snapchat, etc.) were places for making new friends and meeting the old ones across the country. Also, YouTube media and text messenger could send children positive messages. So to speak, “age-appropriate” and “educational” media is able to help children more literate, teach them specific skills and strategies.

In contrast, Heather L. Kirkorian et al., who are professors at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst and the University of California-Riverside, warned that children with even a small dose of exposure to television before age three were associated to later decreasing academic performances. Furthermore, “Experiments on learning from video have repeatedly found that infants and toddlers learn better from real-life experiences than from video,” they added (Kirkorian et al. 5). Children are far more in need of playing than for media viewing. Playing is essential for them. In the article “Why is Play Important? Social and Emotional Development, Physical Development, Creative Development”, the authors stated that playing together builds up critical developments in children. They are social and emotional development, physical and creative development. Playing encourages children to interact with their peers, to practice language, and to learn imperative social skills, such as regulate emotions, take turns and sharing. In my point of view, children should not use media for it hardly helps them but affects them adversely.

The first damaging consequence from media use is violence and aggression. In their research, Brad J. Bushman, Ph.D. and L. Rowell Huesmann, Ph.D. spoke out some shocking results: Violent media was a crucial factor causing people to commit acts of violence, to be afraid of becoming a victim of violence, and to be insensitive to the pain of the others. These effects remained over time. This research proved that children watching violent contents would become more aggressive adults. Especially with boys, eighteen percent of them could possibly use knifes or guns, and significantly have tendencies to be arrested for a crime. Excessive viewers who exposed to media at least four hours per day was more fearful of being victims of violence. They probably wouldn’t believe in the others and perceive their surroundings as dangerous places. This fear could develop early in childhood. They might gradually become more indifferent to the pain and suffering of others, and show less sympathy to victims of violence. The authors also explained that those affected viewers were less willing to help victims of violence, for they thought the victim’s injuries were not that bad, as they held aggressors’ perspective.

Violence media, such as video games are rotting our children’s brains. Because children and adolescents watch daily predominant television programs which “sixty-one percent of the shows containing violence of some kinds” (Agarwal and Dhanasekaran 2), it is difficult for them to avoid these unhealthy impacts. If they have unlimited, unsupervised access to violence media, without immediate instructions and explanations about those violent acts, they gradually shape their aggressive behaviors accordingly, for children learn by mimicking and repeating.

Second, heavy media exposure negatively affects sexual initiations, attitudes and moral judgments in children and adolescents. Bryant Jennings and Steven C. Rockwell, who are professors of The University of Alabama, conducted a study in which young adolescents watched fifteen hours of sexual contents depicting unmarried people. Later these subjects considered such situation as less morally wrong. And they became more approving of sexual adulteries or improprieties. This study indicated that young teenagers, who exposed to screen media portraying sexual intimacy between unmarried individuals, could result in changing moral judgment. Also, Keren Eyal and Dale Kunkel, Ph.D., who are interested in media content and effects on children, also confirmed the finding of Jennings and Rockwell that exposure to sexual content could influence young adults’ sexual attitudes and moral judgments. Their study revealed two other aspects: first, the portrayal of negative consequences of sex could affect more negative attitudes about and perceptions of sexual activity; and second, viewing negative outcome leads to significantly more negative moral judgment of characters. Moreover, the result indicated that such effects could persist over a two-week period. They said young adults who watched negative consequences would be less likely to imitate the behavior, in order to avoid suffering consequences similar to those experienced by the characters. Whereas, there was not a significant change in attitude or moral judgment of participants in positive consequence condition. This was possible for well-established effects on participants. Since they had daily watched such predominated positive outcomes on television, the pretest shown their positive attitudes and moral judgments.

As reported by Agarwal and Dhanasekaran, professors at the King George's Medical University, “fifty percent of shows and sixty-six percent of prime time shows contain sexual content, only nine percent contain any reference to possible risk or responsibilities of sexual activity or any reference to contraception or safer sex” (2). Many other sources of media with improper contents could be problematic, for adolescents curiously explore sex by all means. By any change children and adolescents become decision-makers of what to see. It is because they have more freedom with television, laptop, smartphone and notepad in their bedrooms, and the parents are engaged with their own business. Besides, there is a lack of effective sex education at home and school. Teachers and parents should be aware that children are exposed to sexual imagery and sexual contents at their early age, so we’d better teach and instruct them at the right time.

At last, children’s health is deleteriously affected by media use. In The Journal of the American Medical Association, Anders Grontved, researcher at the University of Southern Denmark, and Frank B. Hu, professor at the Institute of Metabolic Science, Cambridge, used a meta-analysis to examine the association between television viewing habits and risks of health problems. According to their data, every year in the US, with one-hundred-thousand individuals, for every two hours of television viewing per day, the most recent type-II diabetes statistic were one-hundred-seventy-six cases. American Heart Association cardiovascular disease mortality rate statistics were estimated to be thirty-eight cases. The most recent mortality rate statistics were one-hundred-and four deaths.

Leonard A. Jason, Ph.D., et al. did a specific study on children’s health and media use. They suggested that excessive media exposure was linked to the rise of childhood obesity which increasingly related to hypertension, asthma, type-II diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Children snack more with fatty and salty food. Their demands of junk foods increase as the result of children-targeted advertisements. The authors used Kaiser Family Foundation’s data to show that children watched approximately forty-thousand advertisements on television per year. Among those advertisements, thirty-two percent featured candy, thirty-one percent featured cereal, and nine percent featured fast food. No surprise that the fast food industry would spend three-billion dollars for only children-targeted advertisements every year. In sum, media is doing more harms than goods for children and adolescents.

According to Bushman and Huesmann, some people don’t agree with the harmful impacts. First, they might not think about the worst thing which rarely happens, like murder, could exist in their own lives. For them, these rare cases are once in a while, and not everyone watches violent media, then kill people. Second, they might accept negative influences on some others, but not themselves. Third, many people are so strongly convinced by attractive media marketing that they don’t recognize media’s side effects. And finally, people might not understand psychological processes as well as they understand physical processes. So they wouldn’t aware of the mental influences as fast as the physical influences.

The fact that children are the most affected concerns us. Unfortunately, some parents happen to let their children have unacceptable television viewing habits. In the study “Television Viewing and Televisions in Bedrooms: Perceptions of Racial/Ethnic Minority Parents of Young Children”, the authors, who are experts in children and family relations, nutrition and healthcare, have found that racial/ethnic minority parents let their children use television for the following reasons: to keep children occupied safely and quietly when they are busy, to get children to fall asleep, or to have their own private time. The authors figured that parents neither were concerned about the amount of television their children were viewing, nor aware of the adverse consequences associated with having televisions in children bedrooms. Not all parents acknowledge the ugly side of media use. They don’t set any limitations or monitor the contents, thus they can’t prevent their children and adolescents from harmful influences.

Concerning to children’s well-being, Bryant and Rockwell suggested that there were three important factors a family should employ: having clearly and well-defined family value system in which children can know and use media products; having free and open discussions of issues; and encouraging active critical viewings. Moreover, Kirkorian, et al. recommended parents should become active co-viewer and moderator; media producers should integrate narrative and educational contents as much as possible. Strasburger, M.D and Hogan, M.D had some recommendations: First, pediatricians and healthcare providers should ask questions about media use history, particularly children with obesity, aggressive behaviors, difficulties at school, or who are overweight, and provide counseling for families at every well-child visit. Second, schools should be well educated about risks correlated with unsupervised and unlimited media use, foster the benefits of media use and encourage innovations, cooperate with parents and teachers to apply rules and instruct children to use media appropriately. Third, entertainment industry should maximize prosocial contents and lessen harmful effects, also adjust marketing activities with health concerns. And at last, federal government should advocate for researches on the impacts of media, issue strong regulations, work with Department of Education to utilize the benefits of media use in curriculums.

In conclusion, practical researches have consistently proved that even though media use could be a good friend, it could become a trouble-maker. Its harmful influences on children and adolescent would be violence and aggression, sexual matters and health problems. However, they can be avoidable with moderations, instructions and explanations. Therefore, we should immediately take actions to protect our offspring. As parents, we could become co-viewers and moderators. As teachers, we could become instructors. As healthcare providers, we could become counselors. As smart media users, we could set limitations for ourselves, and so on. We would do everything to raise our children physically and mentally healthy.

Assignment 2. Literature Review

The Influences of Media on Users

Since the introduction of radio and television, our modern lives have embraced the prosperity of media use with TV shows, game shows, video games, movies, and music. They become essential parts of our lives. With concerns of their influences on us, many studies have demonstrated the good effects, harmful effects, also suggested solutions to maximize the healthy impacts, and minimize the unhealthy ones.

From the beginning of media use – radio and television broadcasting – David Sarnoff, President of The Radio Corporation of America, New York glamorized the potential effects of television which could offer human-beings distance eyesight. People would be able to extend their visions in far-away lands that they couldn’t visit yet; therefore, they would see and widen their knowledge quickly. Television, combined with radio invention, empowered humankind in exchanging his voice and image to others all over the world. The enchanting of radio had brought incredible aural effects from music, story-telling, instant-news to everyone; yet the strength of visibility helped enhance emotions of drama, live news, and on-going sporting events. Radio-television lifted people to cultural development with good music, dancing, painting, and drama. Politicians would also have effective means to send their messages to citizens with their active motions and persuading data from charts. Marine and airplane had better night-views alongside clear instruction voices. Radios and televisions brought up the need of freedom to discuss and to be treated fairly for everyone. Thanks to these first media inventions, students could have interesting sound-motion lessons in their classes. With all of those helpful impacts, the author predicted that radio and television would become vital elements of our modern lives.

Until now, “new media” offered by radio, television, newspapers, smartphones, note-pads, and Internet are carrying good varieties of articles, music, movies, shows, and video games. They have indeed become important parts of our lives with convenience and advantage. Empirical results consistently have pointed out lots of benefits from media use, such as: fostering knowledge, connectedness, and health information. As pediatricians, Victor C. Strasburger, M.D and Marjorie J. Hogan, M.D emphasized in their research that screen media, such as educational shows and pro-social media, could help children learn numbers and letters, teach them empathy, show them different cultural perspectives, and other interpersonal skills. Likewise, networking sites were a place for making new friends and meeting the old ones; YouTube media and text messages could send us positive information for our health, life-style, and advices. Furthermore, Heather L Kirkorian, et al. wrote that many studies had proved well-designed, age-appropriate, educational, and moderating television viewing were positively associated to academic performance and cognitive skill development. Such programs were able to teach children specific attention skills and strategies. They also encourage them to gain higher levels of school readiness, and offer ways for them to achieve more successful and systematic problem solutions.

Moreover, to investigate the good effects of video games experience on children’s spatial skills, Kaveri Subrahmanyam and Patricia M. Greenfield have conducted an experiment with fifth graders. There was a group playing a spatial game, navigating a marble along tracks through space, and another control group playing computerized word game that was not spatial. They found significantly higher post-test scores for the spatial video game group than for the control group. That indicated spatial video games helped improve spatial performance. Besides, sexual contents on media also have good uses in sexual education.

Discussion of sexual matters on media, in the book Children, Adolescents, and the Media, the authors figured that some shows depicted responsible characters with the issue of teenage sexual activity and pregnancy; the other shows contained conversations of mother and son about responsibility and birth control. In the absence of effective sex education at home or school, the media have become important sources of sexual information for adolescents. According to these authors’ opinions, screen media would become a good friend.  However, different voices out there argued about the other side of media use’s effects, the ugly influences.

Agarwal Vivek, Ph.D and Saranac Dhanasekaran, Ph.D suggested that heavy media viewing has negative impacts on children and adolescents, such as violence and aggression, substance use, health problems, and early sexual initiation. According to The National Television Study, children and adolescents who have watched huge amount of violent scenes are more likely to suffer antisocial effects. Children with more exposure to advertisements of alcohol tend to drink as an adult, and hold a positive belief toward alcohol consumption. More than half of adolescents smoking initiation has related to watching people smoking in movies or music videos. Unfortunately, children and adolescents eat more unhealthy foods for attractive advertisements. They lack skills in interaction with their peers and thereby encounter the risk of isolation, anxiety disorder, agoraphobia, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or depression in young adulthood. Although portrayal of sexual materials have been increasing dramatically (fifty percent of shows, sixty-six percent of prime-time shows), there are limited information about risks related to early sexual initiation, unwanted pregnancy, STDs, and contraception (only nine percent). Moreover, inappropriate contents in the Internet and photo posting on networking sites are also potential risks of early sexual initiations.

Examining violence effect of media use on human-being, as stated in their study, Brad J. Bushman and L. Rowell Huesmann demonstrated some shocking results: Violent media was a crucial factor causing people to commit acts of violence, to be afraid of becoming a victim of violence, and to be insensitive to the pain of the others. These effects remained over time. This research proved that children exposing to media with violent contents would become more aggressive adult; especially with boys, with eighteen percent of them could possibly use knifes or guns, and significantly have tendency to be arrested for a crime. Excessive violent media viewer who exposed to media at least four hours per day was more fearful of being a victim of violence. He or she probably wouldn’t believe in the others and perceive his or her surroundings as a dangerous place. This fear could begin early in childhood. They might gradually become more indifferent to the pain and suffering of others, and show less sympathy to violence’s victims. They were less willing to help victims of violence for they thought the victim’s injuries were not that bad, as they held aggressors’ perspective.

Regarding the association between media use and sexual matters, Bryant Jennings and Steven C. Rockwell, who are Professors of The University of Alabama, conducted a study in which young adolescents watched fifteen hours of sexual contents depicting unmarried people, later these subjects judged such situation as less morally wrong, and became more approving of sexual adulteries or improprieties. This study indicated that young teenagers who had exposure to prime-time television programs portraying sexual intimacy between unmarried individuals could result in changing moral judgment. Keren Eyal and Dale Kunkel also confirmed the finding of Bryant Jennings and Steven C. Rockwell that exposure to sexual content on television could influence young adults’ sexual attitudes and moral judgments. Their study revealed two other aspects: the portrayal of negative consequences of sex can affect more negative attitudes about and perceptions of sexual activity; and viewing negative outcome leads to significantly more negative moral judgment of characters. Moreover, the result indicated that such effects could persist beyond the immediate viewing situation and over a two-week period. Young adults who watched negative consequences would be less likely to imitate the behavior, in order to avoid suffering consequences similar to those experienced by the characters. Whereas, there was not a significant change in attitude or moral, judgment of participants in positive consequence conditions change. This was possible for well-established effects on participants, who had daily exposed such predominated positive outcomes on televisions, as the pretest had showed their positive attitudes and moral judgments.

Meanwhile, researchers are having great concerns about the association between increasing media use and health problem.

In order to take advantage of the healthy effects of media use, and minimize the harmful ones, Jennings Bryant and Steven C. Rockwell suggested that there were three important factors a family should employ: having clearly and well-defined family value system in which teenagers can know and use media products; having free and open discussions of issues; encouraging active critical viewing, active viewing and analysis program content in teenagers. Also, Heather L. Kirkorian, et al. recommended parents should become active co-viewer and moderator; media producers should integrate narrative and educational contents as much as possible. Victor C. Strasburger, M.D and Marjorie J. Hogan, M.D had some recommendations: First, pediatricians and healthcare providers should ask questions about media use history, particularly children with obesity, aggressive behaviors, difficulties at school, or who are overweight, and provide counseling for families at every well-child visit. Second, parents should have limitations and monitor contents of media use. Third, schools should be well educated about risks associated with unsupervised and unlimited media use, foster the benefits of media use and encourage innovations, cooperate with parents and teachers to apply rules and instruct children to use media appropriately. Fourth, entertainment industry should maximize prosocial contents and lessen harmful effects, also adjust marketing activities with health concerns. And at last, federal government should advocate for researches on the impacts of media, issue strong regulations in entertainment industry, on alcohol and tobacco advertisements and children products, work with Department of Education to utilize the benefits of media use in curriculums.

In accordance with faceted opinions of this discussion, media has brought up goods and harms. People can use media to gain and exchange knowledge, to communicate with others, to enrich their cultures and perspectives, thus build up a better society. On the other hand, media use can also affect our physical and mental health; children are especially the most affected. There are always better resolutions to handle all of it. As smart media users, should we consider a solution for ourselves?

Assignment 1. Research.Summary

Negative Influences of Media on Children, Adolescents and Young Adults

Haines, Jess, et al. "Television Viewing and Televisions in Bedrooms: Perceptions of

Racial/Ethnic Minority Parents of Young Children." Journal of Child and Family Studies 22 (2013): 749-756. Web. 25 June 2014.

Television viewings affect harmfully on children’s behavior, weight and academic outcome. It is imperative to understand the attitudes, perceptions, and experiences of parents, who are the decision-makers of young children access to televisions. The authors, who are experts in children and family relations, nutrition and healthcare, have found that racial/ethnic minority parents let their children using television for reasons: to keep children occupied safely and stilly when they are busy; to get children fall asleep; or to have their own private time. The authors figured that parents neither were concerned about the amount of television their children were viewing, nor aware of the adverse consequences associated with having televisions in children bedrooms. Positively, the parents were aware of the importance of monitoring the content of what their children watched. In their focus groups, the parents had suggestions for reducing children’s television viewing: alternative activities, parental group meetings, creating routine or set-schedules, electronic monitors, incentives, and reward systems.

Eyal, Keren, and Dale Kunkel. "The Effects of Sex in Television Drama Shows on Emerging Adults' Sexual Attitudes and Moral Judgments." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 52.2 (2008): 161-181. Web. 2 July 2014.

This study examined sexual media effects during the important development period of emerging adulthood, between the ages of 18 and 25 which occur much sexual activity. Freshmen were randomly assigned to view shows that portrayed either positive or negative consequences of sexual intercourse. Keren and Dale have found that exposure to even a small amount of sexual content on television can influence young adults’ sexual attitudes and moral judgments. This study reveals two aspects: the portrayal of negative consequences of sex can affect more negative attitudes about and perceptions of sexual activity; and viewing negative outcome leads to significantly more negative moral judgment of characters. Moreover, the result indicates that such effects can persist beyond the immediate viewing situation and over a 2-week period. Young adults who watch negative consequences will less likely to imitate the behavior, in order to avoid suffering consequences similar to those experienced by the characters.

Whereas, there was not a significant change in attitude or moral judgment of participants in positive consequence conditions. This is possibly because of well-established effects on participants who have everyday viewing such predominated positive outcomes on televisions, as the pretest had showed their positive attitudes and moral judgments.

Bryant, Jennings, and Steven C. Rockwell. "Effects of Massive Exposure to Sexual Oriented

Prime–time Television Programing on Adolescents’ Moral Judgment." Media, Children, and the Family. Ed. Dolf Zillmann, Jennings Bryant, Aletha C. Huston. New York: Routledge, 2013. 183-194. Web. 2 July. 2014.

Bryant and Rockwell, who are Professors of University of Alabama, figured out young adolescents who watched 15 hours of sexual television content depicting unmarried people later judged such situation as less morally wrong. These young adolescents became more approving of sexual adulteries or improprieties. This study indicates that young teenagers who have heavy exposure to prime-time TV programing content of sexual intimacy between unmarried individuals can result in changing moral judgment.

To moderate the cognitive influences of media consumption as far as moral judgment is concerned, there are three important factors a family should employ: having clear and well-defined family value system in which teenagers can know and use media products; having free and open discussions of issues; encouraging active critical viewing, active viewing and analysis program content in teenagers.

Vivek, Agarwal, and Saranac Dhanasekaran. "Harmful Effects of Media on Children and

Adolescents." Journal of Indian Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health 8.2 (2012): 38-45. Institute of Education Science. Web. 2 Jul. 2014.

Media viewing has negative impacts on children and adolescents: violence and aggression, health problem, substance use and early sexual initiation.

            According to the National Television Study, children and adolescents have watched a huge amount of violence on shows are more likely to suffer antisocial effects from those television violence. Violence from the internet and video games are also problematic sources. If they don't have good reasonable and immediate instructions from adults, they may imitate and shape their behaviors accordingly.

Children with more exposure to advertisements of liquor, alcohol tend to drink as an adult. They also have a positive belief toward alcohol consumption. More than half of adolescents smoking initiation has related to watching people smoking in movies, or music videos.

            Although portrayal of sexual material has increased dramatically (50% of shows, 66% prime-time shows), there has been very little information about risks related to early sexual initiation, unwanted pregnancy, STDs, and contraception (only 9%). Moreover, unsupervised, unlimited internet access with inappropriate contents, and photos postings on networking sites are also potential risks of sexual activities. They are critical reasons of early sexual initiation.

            A relationship exists between the time spending on TV and the risk of obesity. Children and adolescents are affected by unhealthy food advertisements which contribute to their increasing demands of those food.

Many studies have proved a deleterious effect on academic performance of watching TV one to two hour a day. Children lack of skills in interaction with their peers and thereby encounter the risk of isolation, anxiety disorder and agoraphobia. Excessive TV viewing play a role in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or depression in young adult hood. 

Physicians should make stronger warnings to patients and themselves about the negative impacts of heavy media use. Educators should enhance their teaching with righteous moral guideline to teach children not to mimic the villains in TV programs, how to act and well behave in the real world. Parents should monitor what programs their children viewing, limit the watching TV time, and try alternating physical, social, and educational activities in spite of watching TV. Policy makers should consider carefully about the 2-sided consequences of a media product toward viewers’ cognitive impacts before publishing.  

Bushman, Brad J., and L. Rowell Huesmann. “Effects of violent media on Aggression.” Handbook

of children and Media. Ed. Dorothy G. Singer, Jerome L. Singer. 2nd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2011. 231-246. Web. 03 Jul. 2014

Violent media (video games, TV programs, movies, internet websites and music) is a crucial factor causing people to commit acts of violence, to be afraid of becoming a victim of violence, and to be neglect to the grief or pain of the others. These effects remain over the time.

Researches have proved that children who watching TV violence in their early childhood will become more aggressive adult; especially with boys, they tend twice as likely to apply violence in their family years later; with 18% of them possibly intend to use knifes or guns, and significantly have tendency to be arrested for a crime.

Excessive violent media viewer who exposes to media at least 4 hours per day are more fearful of being a victim of violence. He or she probably doesn’t believe in the others and perceive his or her surroundings as a dangerous place. This fear can begin early in childhood.

Violent favored watchers gradually become more indifferent to the pain and suffering of others, and show less sympathy to violent victims. They are less willing to help violent victim because they think the victim’s injure is not that bad, as they hold aggressors’ perspective.

Some people don’t agree with the harmful impacts. First, they might not think about the worst thing which rarely happens, such as murder, could exist in their own lives. For them, these rare cases are once in a while, and not everyone watches violent media, then kill people. Second, they might accept negative influences on some others, but not themselves. Third, many people are affected by marketing activities on those media products. And finally, people might not understand psychological processes as well as they understand physical processes.

Children, our precious future, are most affected by violence media; therefore, we should act immediately to protect them from those harmful influences. There are ways for us to take actions: Better parental control, more government control, enhance education and training children at school, putting computer or TV in a shared place rather than children bedroom, electronic chips can cut out violence, and boycott violence sponsors.

Grontved, A., and F. B. Hu. "Television Viewing and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes, Cardiovascular

Disease, and All-Cause Mortality: A Meta-analysis." JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association 305.23 (2011). Web. 04 July. 2014.

Instead of spending leisure time on physical activities, people tend to watch televisions in long period of time, and eating unhealthy food when watching TV (fried food, processed food, sugar and sweeten beverage; there are shortages of fruits, vegetables and whole grains).

As the result of continuous TV advertisements, people consume more junk food, more likely to smoke and drink alcohol. According to this meta-analysis study, there are linear relationship between prolong TV exposure with diagnoses of type 2 diabetes, fatal or non-fatal cardiovascular diseases, and all-cause mortality.

Every year, in the United States, with 100 000 individuals, for every 2 hours of TV viewing per day, the most recent type 2 diabetes statistics was estimated to be 176 cases, American Heart Association cardiovascular disease mortality rate statistics was estimated to be 38 cases of fatal cardiovascular disease, the most recent US mortality rate statistics was estimated to be 104 deaths.

Alternative activities are recommended such as:  sleeping, reading, and physical activities.

Kirkorian, Heather L., Ellen A. Wartella, and Daniel R. Anderson. "Media and Young Children’s

Learning."  Institute of Education Science 18.1 (2008): 39-61. Web. 2 Jul. 2014.

Media content is the most important factor in the relation of media use with cognitive skill development and academic achievement. This research demonstrates that well-designed, age-appropriate, educational and moderating TV viewing is positively associated to academic performance and cognitive skill development. Whereas, higher rate of pure entertainment, particularly violent media exposure is negatively linked to all those measurements.

            The research indicates that viewing before age 3 was associated to later decreasing academic performance, and young children may better learn and understand from real life experiences than from TV. There is a weak but alarming evidence of harmful effect on later cognitive of children young than age 2 having exposure to TV.

However, several experiments have found that television can teach specific attention skills and strategies. Children who view educational programs have higher levels of school readiness, and achieve more successful and systematic problem solutions.

            To enhance healthy impacts and minimize harmful impacts of media use, parents should become active co-viewer and moderator; media producers should integrate narrative and educational content as much as possible.

Jason, Leonard A., Jennifer Danielewicz and Anna Mesina. "Reducing Media Viewing:

Implications for Behaviorists." Institute of Education Science 2.3 (2005). Web. 2 Jul. 2014.

Media violence increases aggression in children, especially video games which allows children to be aggressors and obtain rewards for violent behaviors. Additionally, media influences sexual behaviors and attitudes by sending contradictory messages that beautify non-married sexual activity and disregard the risks of such behaviors. Excessive media exposure is linked to the rise of childhood obesity which continually is associated with higher rates of hypertension, asthma, type II diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

Children’s eating and nutritional habits play a role in the risk of obesity. They snack more with fatty and salty food while watching television. According to Kaiser Family Foundation information, advertisements in the media contribute to childhood obesity, as children watch an estimated 40,000 ads on television per year. Of the ads targeted to children, 32% featured candy, 31% cereal, and 9% fast food. The fast food industry alone will spend 3 billion dollars for ads aimed at children every year.

The parent-child training program has been used to reduce media use in children who are overweight or at risk of being overweight. In this program, parents learn to better monitor electronic media use, consistently apply rules for children’s media use, encourage other non-media behaviors, and help children to eat healthy food. Such program can help children adjust their activities that result in active movements, less exposure to commercials featuring high sugar, high fat foods and drinks, less snacking in front of television, and consequent weight loss.

Strasburger, Victor C., and Marjorie J. Hogan.”Children, Adolescents, and the Media.” Pediatrics 132.5 (2013): 958-961. Web. 09 Jul. 2014.

From the perspective of pediatricians, the authors send us a message about new media use in our children and teenagers’ lives. Nowadays, using media including television, cellphone, Ipad, and social media is vital part of their daily activities. Media use is proved to have negative influences, and also positive influences such as: fostering knowledge, connectedness, and health.

Two third of teenagers reported that their parents had no rules or limitation on their internet and media using. They could watch inappropriate sexual, or violent movies; and text messages over the nights. These problems affected their cognition, behaviors, and health.

On the other hands, studies found that media such as educational shows and prosocial media can help children learn numbers and letters, teach them empathy, show them different cultural perspectives, and other interpersonal skills. YouTube media and text messages can send them positive information about their health.

Recommendations for pediatricians and healthcare providers: being aware of harmful effects of media using; ask questions about history of media use, particularly children with obesity, overweigh, aggressive behaviors, or difficulties at school, and provide counseling for family at every well-child visit;

With recommendations of pediatricians, parents should: limit the time and monitor contents of media using, co-view, and set up family use plan for media with rules.

Schools should: be well educated about risks associated with unsupervised, unlimited media use; foster the benefits of media use and encourage innovations in education; cooperate with parents and teacher to apply rules and instruct children to use media appropriately.

Entertainment industry should: maximize prosocial contents and minimize harmful effects; adjust marketing activities with health concern.

Federal government should: advocate for researches on the impacts of media; issue strong regulations in entertainment and marketing industry on alcohol, tobacco, and children products; work with Department of Education to utilize the benefits of media use in curriculums.

Journal 14. Distribution.

I am especially interested in distribution industry in which people bring products and food and everything to the others. How amazing it is to connect the demands and supply together.
When we see boxes of chocolate milk on the shelf , that is a chain of actions : getting the milk from cows, pasteurizing, packing, labeling, coding, transportation and display.  It takes time and effort to offer customers with quality, fresh products. Some products like food need to be delivered strictly with time frames for their expiration dates. The others such as lighting bulbs or decorative stuff must be carried with care to protect the products. Cameras, cellphones must be showed up at the most attractive conners for catching customer's eyesight. Every product needs specific distribution's requirement. There are couples of channels to provide products to customers. Some people can sell things in department stores, while the others sell their products on websites.
Today we have groceries in our fridges, formula and diapers for our baby, and every single thing we are using thanks to the efforts from people, who are producing things, and sending them to the markets for us.

Class summary

In the first day of class, I learnt how to do reseach. I felt interested into this. Doing research sounds great to me. Since I've learnt how to do research, I believe I read effectively and gain more knowledge. And this skill can help me along my long-time study. I started reading more about technologies as my class focuses on them. I had some good sources of information which Professor recommended such as Scholar Google, Esco Host and electronic magazines.

The next day, we studied Run-ons, sentence structures and punctuation like comma, period, colon and semi colon. I'm not good at run-on so I thought the lesson was helpful. I could use punctuation to correct run-on sentences. At the end of the class, we were assigned the first assignment: Reseach summary.

I like the Basic essay format lesson. In that section, I've known how to write an essay clearly and precisely. We've figured out how to write an effective thesis statement, how to organize paragraphs. Thanks to a good preparation, I could write the 2 second assignment which was an essay better. I'm going to apply this format to write more essays. The second assignment was a new challenge to me for I'd never written it: Literature review which I had to do some reseach, then write all sides, all voices in the conversation of this topic.

For me, the most important format I've learnt is MLA. MLA is abbreviation of "Modern Language Association of America". Students in social majors like humanity or English usually use it to write. I've become skillful with intent citations and Works Cited pages. No more fear, no more confusing. I also know how to make a citation by myself. I don't use websites which make citations automatically, so that I don't have to rely on these websites.

Simplifying was important and interesting. I found out my writings were wordy and lengthy. Fortunately, there are ways to improve it: Changing passive voice to active voice, avoid using "there is" and so on. We did some exercises in class and read more about it at home. Those posts form professors are informative.

We talked about tethering which means people's attachments to electronic devices. We discussed the excerpt from "Always on/Always-on-you: The tethered self". We also proposed to try a week without screen media.

The last assignment was Argumentation. I found an essay format sample in which I could write a counterpart, and then some reasons to support my stance.

In sum, in this class I've learnt how to do a research, how to write a Literature review and an argumentation.

Journal 13. The Future of My Topic

I've done a research about media use effects. Researchers have discussed good and bad sides of media use. Although they've proved lots of harmful impacts on human-being, studies haven't focused on media effects on infants and toddles.
In my point of view, children have exposure to media at early age, infants and toddles. So that it's necessary to examine how media affects young children's cognitive at their very beginning. What if infants and toddles could learn something from media? What if they're affected adversely by early exposure to screen media? We need answers from experts to find the best way to raise our children.

Journal 12. Money.

We all need money. My little family needs money, so does my big family. But only few of us are working to make bread and butter. The others are little, school-age and old. I can feel how hard our breadwinner are struggling. I want to help them. But I have to wait. Wait until I'm educated. Wait until I'm ready physically, educationally to get a job with good payment. All I need now is studying as I know that the only thing I can do best now. Worrisome is just bordering me sometimes.