Impact of Television on Children

Impact of Television on Children

Introduction

The advances in information and technology are not only affecting the lifestyle and outlook of individual towards life, but are also placing an impact on their minds and behaviors. It is eminent to mention here that the changes are not only taking place on the technological front, but are also playing a significant part in increasing the awareness and sensitivity of individuals and thus changing their outlook towards life. It is eminent to mention here that these effects are more obvious and better visible on children as compared to adults, and there are a number of reasons behind this happening. The most prominent and major reason behind the happening is: children do not have clear concepts about life and living and thus they readily accept whatever is offered to them. The same accounts for their vulnerability to media content and thus causes them to be the easy target of all the forms of media.

Discussion

Television is known as the most influential as well as powerful form of mass communication, which implies that the messages sent by television have the strongest impact on the minds and behaviors of individuals. As television sends both the visual as well as audio signals, it provides a complete picture to the audience and it is due to the same reason that television is generally used as the propaganda tool as well. It should be taken into account that the success of television advertisements and promotional campaigns have caused the mass communicators to pay special attention towards the media and a large number of researches have been conducted to focus on the effects placed by television on children.

It is eminent to mention here that that researches conducted by the various researchers across the globe are not only meant to get an idea about the impact of television viewing on children, but the same also intends to focus on the attention paid by children to television content and their likings and the dislikes. The research conducted by Gbadamosi, A. et al, 2012, regarding the attitudinal reaction of children towards advertising suggests that children are more inclined towards advertising as compared to the general content and thus pay more attention to the televisions advertisements (Gbadamosi, et al, 2012). However, it should be noted that they showed different attitudes and ideas about different types of advertisements: for instance, they were more interested in the advertisements that involved celebrities and other such famous individuals and at the same time, the advertisements of certain products were declared boring and uninteresting by them. Language as well as the message delivered by the advertisements were closely considered and monitored by the children, which suggests that they are keenly interested in media content the same also shapes their thinking and course of action. The research thus highlights the impact of television on children and the manners in which they get affected by it.

The inclination of children towards advertisements and the differences in ideas about various types ...