PasWatching television is one of the most favorite pastimes of many of us. Watching television can be fun, entertaining and also can be educational. In addition to that, the price of television set has significantly reduced in recent years; make it more affordable for a family to own more than one in single family home. It is also quite normal for children to have their own television set in their bedroom nowadays. For children, watching television can not only act as source of entertainment but also can be used as teaching aid to help them learn new things. For adults, the widespread availability of cable network and IPTV provider such as ASTRO and HyppTV enables various types of programs telecasted by various channels ranging from news to television series, documentaries, international and local films, music and entertainment programs and also sports programs make it more adults attached to their television set as indicated by the increase of subscribers by ASTRO, with year on year growth of 4% for pay tv customers that reach 3.48 million subscribers last year [1].
Although watching television can be an entertaining experience and rewarding pastime, watching too much television can be also be very bad in many ways especially for children. As we have mentioned before, watching television can be both entertaining and educational for them but can be also be harmful if too may often watching television is used as substitute to other activities that are also important for their wellbeing and development. It is indicated that by studies that many children are watching more television than recommended by American Academy of Pediatrics [2]. Among the problems that can occur due to watching too much is the negative impact on the social skill and interactions with friends and family members. Children may become attached too much to watching television that they may talk less about their feelings and ideas that may affect their interaction with peers and families in negative way. Experts says that children learn a lot and efficiently from real interaction and experience with people and things and not from what they see on the television. In addition to that, children’s language skill can only be developed significantly by talking to people in real life rather than listening passively to the television [3]. Due to the negative effects on children that can be caused by watching too much television, American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommended that children aged two and above should not watch television more than two hours daily while children aged below two should not be exposed to watching television at all [4]
Watching too much television can also affect children’s healthy lifestyle. Spending long hours watching television means that less and less time spend for physical activities outside such as playing with other children or involved in physical sports. This is very unhealthy for them as watching too much television will make their body tend to be weaker as exercise and physical activities are important for them to grow properly. Previous studies that conducted on children over long period of time also consistently indicated that the more children are allowed to watch television, the more they are at risk of obesity [5][6][7][8][9]. Negative health effect of watching television in early years among children may also long last and will continue to adulthood and thus put them at greater risk of obesity at latter stage of life [10][11]
When children are addicted to watching television too much, the addictive behavior will discourage them from other more beneficial activity such as reading. It is true that when watching television is conducted in moderation it can be a good and practical method for children to learn new things on television such as learning alphabet for preschoolers, documentary about nature for primary and secondary school children and many more. However watching too much television will discourage children from improving their reading skills through practice. Study by Macbeth (1996) indicated that children watching cartoons and entertainment have poorer pre reading skills at the age of five years old. In another study by Wright and Huston (1996), children watch entertainment on television are more likely to read less books and other printed media. It is also found that children who exposed to watching too much television are experiencing difficulties in paying attention to their teachers in classrooms as watching television has made them more susceptible to the fast paced visual stimulation from television. In addition to that, watching too much television also means that they will be more likely to work less on their homework. Lack of sleep is also common among children who spend too much time watching television, and will subsequently affect their performance in classrooms [3]
Watching television can also exposed children to violence and many other bad things that can potentially polluting their mind. It is quite common nowadays that violence and sex are freely shown in television shows and commercials and these can be bad influences to children. Watching too much television will expose children to violence and will aggressiveness among themselves and also towards adults. Violence shown on television is often shown in realistic manner and sometimes portrayed as ‘cool and trendy’. This wrong message can be subsequently imitated by children and excessive exposure to violence will lead to bullying among them. Violence shown on television will affect children’s emotional, behavior and learning ability and sometimes can make them hard to differentiate between good and bad things to do. Impact of violence is so significant on children as it can also be carried to their later stage of life when they reach adulthood.
Up until now we have briefly discussed on the negative effects on watching too much television among children. Similar to children, television is also a great source of entertainment but at the same time it also can possess risk and harm to health and well-being, thus might severely affect adults physically and physiology. It is no doubt that the more time adults spend time on watching television, the higher the risk related to chronic diseases due to obesity. Based on study conducted previously, it showed that the risk of obesity increased as the time more time consumed to watch television [12]. There are many ways that obesity can be linked to excessive watching of television such as it will replacing time for physical activities, poor eating habits due to consuming too much unhealthy food and snacks during television viewing and also disruption of sleeping pattern. In addition to that, adults are likely to be addicted to unhealthy foods that are high in sugar such as fast food, carbonated drinks, and unhealthy junk food through commercial on television. As an alternative to television, there are many other activities that can be done to replace watching television such as reading, socializing with friend and family members, or just go to bed early rather at night rather than spending hours on television until late at night.
Violence shown television will not only affect children, but also adult as well. In the United States of America (USA), almost two out of the three shows shown on television contain some kinds of violence[13]. Frequent exposure to violence on television may increase acceptance of violence among adults such as domestic abuse, rape and also alcohol and drug related abuse. We have mentioned earlier that violence and aggressive behavior among adults may be occurred as a result of early exposure to watching television during childhood. Based on one study conducted by Huesman et al., early childhood exposure to violence will cause aggressive behavior for both male and female in adulthood [14].
Television can also affect self-image among adults. Self-image is defined as the physical and cognitive portrayal of human body on how we should look in terms of size, height and color. It is true that through entertainment programs shown on television, adults are exposed and bombarded with images of people with beautiful faces and bodies. This may cause disappointment in some of us as these images shown on television are significantly different from what we can encounter in real life. It can be denied that television sets standard of beauty that many of us cannot achieve. Based on study that has been published in Academic Psychiatry Journal by Drs. Jennifer L. Derenne and Eugene V. Beresin , this feeling of frustration will effect adults emotionally and may lead to both obesity and eating disorder. This phenomenon is more significant among female adults and may cause severely disordered eating behavior among them that will subsequently lead to chronic health problems [13].
It is no doubt that watching television can have various negative impacts on both children and adult physically and physiologically. Despite of that, there are many steps that can be taken to minimalize it. For children, the time they consumed to watch television should be based on recommendations from the experts such as the American Academy of Pediatrics that recommends that children should not be allowed to watch television more than two hours per day, and children below two years old should not be exposed to watching television at all. For adults, to reduce the risk of obesity due to the excessive behavior of watching television, it is best for them to cut the time spend to watch television and increased the time on physical activities. Reducing the time watching too much television will help to avoid sedentary lifestyle and also intake of bad calories due to the unhealthy snacking that always occurs during watching television.
There are many ways that can be taken to eliminate the impact of violence from television on children. One of the easiest methods that can be applied to stop children from being exposed to violence is by turning off the television. Children are likely to imitate and follow what they see on television and thus, parental control is the most effective way to stop exposure of violence on children. Parents should also be responsible to teach their children that violence in any way is not tolerable and should be avoided. Limiting exposure of violence on television among children will be a great help when they reach adulthood, as children who exposed to violence during their early years may face heightened risk of aggressive behavior when they reach adulthood such as criminal offences and spouse abuse.
To encourage positive body image on us as an adult, we have to teach ourselves by valued ourselves for what we are rather than how we look and appear to be on others. We as an adult should be not too concerned on our outer images by comparing ourselves to what we see on television. On the other hand, we can also promote and encourage positive body image among children by teaching them to view themselves positively. Make it a habit to spend time with them while they are watching their favorite television programs. Teenagers especially young girls are often more pressured to peer pressure, they are more attached to popular television show and listening to music according to their friends’ likings and dress to certain styles and fashions just like their peers. We as an adult are responsible to remind them although outer body image is important; there are other more important things in life than just how they look like.
As a conclusion, it can be said that television is not just an electronic device that can provide us with entertainment and fun during our free time, to keep up with the latest current news and for our children to watch their favorite cartoon show. Television has developed somehow into complex and powerful device that has the potential to cause both positive and negative effects and is highly capable of affecting us as an adult and children both physically and psychologically. As an adult, we are responsible not only to ourselves but also to our children to not too overly attached to television and thus minimizing the negative impacts of television on our lives.
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