INFANTS AND TELEVISION

“Are there good reasons to allow infants to consume electronic media such as television?”

“Are there good reasons to allow infants to consume electronic media such as television?”

Taking Sides: Clashing Views In Lifespan Development presents current controversial issues in a debate-style format designed to stimulate student interest and develop critical thinking skills. Each issue is thoughtfully framed with an issue summary, an issue introduction, and a postscript. The question discussed in issue 6 is as:

“Are there good reasons to allow infants to consume electronic media such as television.”

Answer: Yes, in this way they can be more familiar to the use of electronic media. Victoria Rideout, Elizabeth Hamel, and the Kaiser Family Foundation find that television and electronic media allow families to cope with busy schedules and are of value to parents of infants. Psychologists Daniel Anderson and Tiffany Pempek, instead focus on infant learning. In their review of available literature, they concur with the American Academy of Pediatrics in recommending that infants should have no exposure to television. (Rideout, 2006)

In today's generation television has a great influence on children. Unfortunately most of the programs watched by children have a negative impact and give the wrong impression of what really happens in everyday life. It also influences their development and their behaviours. 'In fact childhood development experts say infants as young as 14 months old imitate behaviour they see on t.v and children up to the age of 5 lack the cognitive ability to distinguish fact from fantasy'(Internet; Children and television violence) Therefore what they see on t.v is what they are most likely to imitate. Cartoons are even showing numerous acts of violence and most of this violence is done by the 'good guys'. For example, Power Rangers; how do they get rid of the bad guys? By fighting. During the whole episode you see the 'Rangers' kicking, punching and attacking the bad guys. Other shows like X-men, Sailor Moon, Looney Tones, and even Care Bears show violence towards others. It's no wonder children think its okay to act this way when even their 'Super Heroes' who are supposed to be the good guys are hurting others. They see the good guys doing these things and think it's appropriate.(Rideout, 2006)

His primary goal of this study was to examine the manner in which 6- and 18-month-old infants deployed their visual attention in a competitive context where a variety of toys, an infant-directed video, and a parent were available for engagement. The results revealed a strikingly similar pattern of looking preferences in which infants at both 6 and 18 months of age directed most of their attention to the toys across the 20 min play session, a preference that was diminished but not supplanted by the availability of the video on television for ten of those minutes.

An imitation procedure was used to investigate the impact of demonstrator familiarity and language cues on infant learning from television. Eighteen-month-old infants watched two pre-recorded videos showing an adult demonstrating a sequence ...