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.