Psycological Effect
It has been shown that watching television can bring negative impact to the community particularly psychological health for those people that spend long time watching television. The study conducted at Harvard University shows that obesity is the main health issue that is related to watching television. Various researches indicated and confirmed that both adult and children that spend more than two hours of watching television would have obesity related problems. Thus, parents should play a role to limit children to not spend more than two hours a day in front of the television.
According to Dr Mark Deboer, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Virginia, children who watch TV for more than 1 or 2 hours a day will have a problem with obesity as compared to those children who watch less than that time period. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in California, 39 percent of children will tend to be obese if watching TV for more than one hour a day and 86 percent will suffer from obesity as the age is seven years old onwards. Indirectly, the children or adolescents who suffer from obesity will suffer from various diseases such as cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, insomnia, poor self-esteem and many others.
In addition to that, it will also affect the psychosocial state of the children or adolescents. In the western culture, people are more likely to be lean in appearance, which according to them this type of appearance is more attractive and "sexy". The sleek and slender body can draw attention to their friends in particular interest from the men. In addition, those people who are obese are termed as lazy and sluggish. It therefore caused psychosocial problems to these group of people.
Nowadays, there are plenty of tv programs which have negative elements such as violence and sexual abuse. Such a program will result in psychological effects to a person life. In her book "Children's Journeys Through the Information Age", Sandra L. Calvert mentioned that 70 per cent of the television show now contain elements of violence. These violent acts were shown five times in an hour and nearly all the character in the television program involved in violent and sexual acts. These negative elements will have emotional harm in the lives of individual.
Many television channels generally expose to the public, particularly the young people the culture that is incompatible with a society that adopts a pure oriental culture and good practice of religion. For example, the films originated from most Western countries contain elements of violence, sex, romance, superstition and more of the other negative elements. Now, not only films from the West contained these negative elements, films from Eastern countries were also influenced by the culture of the West. For example, films from China, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia. Television programs containing negative elements will influence the thinking and behaviour of the children and encouraged them to imitate actions related to the tv to release the feelings of anger and dissatisfaction when experiencing emotional problems such as breakup, work pressure and etc.
Sadly, the acts of violence shown on television often were tied to bad incident in society. Such kinds of scenes encourage one to act to show support of the violent scenes. Children and adolescents are more likely to emulate and look up to characters who use violence as something that is attractive. Acts of violence on television is often considered a sensible thing to do. Small children are more likely to harm their peers and not help him after watching a series of cartoons featuring scenes of violence. Excessive exposure to violent media also produces physiological effect and result in normal emotional response to a violent environment. For example, in the horror film Silence Of The Limbs director Demme Johnthan mix the old with the new and frightening plot displays in the filming of the movie similar to Hitchcock. The fact is that this horror story is not good for the society in general by displaying scenes of violence, be it in the television, cinema or book.
Social Effect
TV viewing will reduce a person's social skills. Social skills are important for individuals to interact with others. Individuals with high social skills are able to adapt in a variety of environments. A child must always interact or associate with other people in the form of two-way communication in order to have high social skills. Else, they will grow up to be less sociable individual and passive in nature.
A state of 'deferred imitation' arises when there is no two-way communication. Children tend to mimic the behaviour shown on the TV without realising the conduct was imitated and seen in the past whether through television or behaviour in the real world. Children will also mention or speak based on what is heard in similar to parrot calling or imitating without understanding the meaning.
A study had been conducted by Dr Sally Ward for a period of ten years on infants and children. She said television is the most important factor in slowing the progression of the speech in one to the five people who were found to suffer from this problem. The study found the noise from the television can influence children's emotional and prevent children from learning to speak as early as they should. It has been shown watching TV for a long time will not give an opportunity to the individual to make a comment or ask again. Thus, the individual will remain silent. No words or sentences are called. Viewing period of time indirectly reduces the time for children to learn to speak. This situation will make it difficult for children to interact with others and also can cause misunderstanding in their understanding of a concept.
According to David Sohn, the Chairman of the Language Arts in ML King Jr. Laboratory School, Evanston, Illinois, the children who watch television five to six hours a day, thinking they are in groups so they will fail to interact with each other. Controlling emotions is sure to cause them more likely to remain silent and to isolate themselves from the outside world. They also are afraid of each other and show anxiety and discomfort with friends.
Children tend to drop their focus on speech with the increasing in the time of watching television. They are less interested and slow to respond to speech or conversation. It does not just stop at this level, the next focus problem can be seen when the child was aged pre-school or early school. They found it difficult to master the skills of reading, writing and arithmetic.
Psysiological effects
A study was presented at a University of Chicago and reported in the Journal of Comparative Neurology, it highlighted that the first three years of a child's life is an important time for brain development because this is where the various parts of the brain undergo a process of "wiring". This brain wiring refers to the development of the relationship between the various brain cell synapses after birth. Synapse is a telephone line that allows brain cells to communicate. Trillion were formed during the first two years and is believed to be produced by an exaggeration to ensure adequate levels of neural networks in shaping the vision, speech, thought, emotions and other mental abilities. During this age children are not interested in the television because they are still fresh in activities to control his own emotions.
Watching television is one way communication where children will be passive and not allowed to think which can freeze the mind. Dr. Jerre Levy, bio-psychologist at the University of Chicago and an expert in the development of brain hemisphere expressed when children watch television, they will not allocate time to read. When a child read the novel, he had to create his own entire scenario, he has to create an image of who the person is, how his emotions and his voice is, how the surrounding looks like, and what they feel about the environment. Scenarios are created by yourself and it is important for the individual. Televisions will not leave space for the creative process to happen. The brain is designed to meet the challenges of cognitive, unlike muscle. If you do not train the brain, the brain will also be weak.
The study found that watch television regularly will change the structure of the brain and damage it. Japan has been conducting a study to examine the brains of 276 children and the study has shown that watching television will reduce alertness and weaken think children especially in the areas of channel count. Children who watch television often not efficient to calculate in math as compared with students who watched television.
Watching too much television can cause an individual to use two senses only the ears and eyes to hear and see. This causes the right side of the brain to be rarely used. This is very different things as compared to when reading a story book or novel. When we read the book, we intend to have the imagination to visualize what is included in writing. Indirectly, we have activated our right brain and the left-right brain needs to be balanced to ensure that memory and future kuatdi not easy to dementia in old age.
TV viewing habits are also able to make your heart or mood not calm. This is because watching television will reduce your sleep time and health experts believe that this habit will create a physiological disorder that makes people uneasy.
When children watch TV for too long, the time should instead be used for activities in the form of imagination. This will make children less creative, failed to focus and fitful sleep. This is because television provides too little space for children to think and to hinder the children's thinking.
A study conducted by the American Academy of Pediatrics, shows that watching video could lead to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Pace television in the form of delirium in addition to the sound and image exchange may affect the nervous system of some children, causing Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The disease will be less focus on continuous, hyperactivity and impulsive behavior, or a combination of these three treatments. There are enough studies to recommend measures to prohibit children under five years of watching too much television programs can reduce the chances of developing ADHD.
Harvard University has conducted research and published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine which declared that watch tv redundantly will reduce the number of male sperm. Physical activity tends to decrease when a person watching tv excessively and continuely for 1 hour. This is one of the physiological effects on the individual.