Positive Effects of Television on the Way People Understand Themselves

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Television helps in building child cognition. Several studies have assessed childrens programs such as Sesame Street. All these studies find that young children who view Sesame Street often have more developed cognition in identifying shapes, numbers and letter than those who do not view the program (Fisch 2004). Besides, these children do extremely well in academics when they join high school.

Conversely, watching television may impair cognition in children. Williams (1986) evaluated cognition in children using a test called alternate uses. He found that the scores of the test dropped after children watched television. Although these findings might have been true, some factors that had no relationship with watching television could have influenced the findings of this study.

Some of these factors could have been tiredness or boredom due to repeating the same test. The work of Williams (1986) is also disputable because children, who like watching, usually follow scenes keenly so that they can recall all the events that crop from week to week. Rather than impairing a childs cognitive ability, such an activity should help in developing a childs cognitive ability.

This point can also be supported by the work of McLuhan (1964), who argues that television requires high levels of audience participation. Hence, watching television builds cognition as a child takes part by thinking actively in the entire program.

Television acts as a valuable resource through providing viewers with the latest information about what is happening around them. For instance, a person gets to know when calamities such as Hurricanes strike some parts of the world, or when Iraq is fighting with America.

Such information helps people to understand themselves more as they are able to tell why some leaders of the world may concentrate so much on some issues that other leaders, in other parts, may not consider. For instance, people can get to understand why the American government has to budget for so much money in security and disaster management as opposed to other governments.

However, television does not act as a valuable resource in all topics. Essential topics such as employment openings receive little address from televisions despite the fact that most people are jobless. Hence, we can argue that televisions allow people to understand others, but it offers little when it comes to economic and personal development.

Television helps people to understand and appreciate their gender roles. Men dominate most programs on television because few women have jobs. In efforts to investigate the role that television has on making people understand gender, Williams (1986) conducted a study on how children classified men and women after watching some television shows.

All children received a list of traits, and they had to classify these traits depending on whether they were common in boys or girls. After the study, Williams (1986) concluded that television influenced the understanding of men and women roles among children. Understanding gender roles is essential, but it can lead to gender stereotyping.

For instance, girls may refuse to take up subjects that will develop them into media workers because they associate such jobs with men. Also, dividing jobs according to gender orientation promotes gender inequality as organizations place men on leadership positions that pay well while women work as their subordinates with little pay.

Some television programs have made people realize that they can find pleasure in reading books as well as using different methods of instruction in learning. Most people move from one bookshop to the other searching for books that have life stories of characters that they admire in television shows. Also, some television programs like Discovery and History Channels contain lots of educational content.

These channels show some events that took place long ago including wars, as well as evolution of human beings. People get to understand where they came from and why they relate with some societies in certain ways, through watching historical events.

For instance, through watching about Germany armament on history channels, people can understand the roots of the tension between European and American countries. On the other hand, television shows may hamper the habit of reading books in children.

Most children tend to concentrate on watching cartoons and other fun shows, rather than educational programs. Thus, televisions can influence reading and performance in schools, unless parents check what they watch.

Television shows enhance interaction among different people, thus enabling them to understand each other better. This is because television shows offer a platform from where office mates, who have little in common, can start a dialogue. People commonly watch television series like the Sopranos and sport channels and thus, they always have much to talk about them.

Cartoon shows, also, form a ground for interaction as people from all demographic groups, including children watch them (Datta 2007). In fact, most grownups refer to cartoons when they want to start a dialogue with children, or when they want to cheer up sickly children. Some cartoon channels, which people watch commonly, are Disney Channel, Nickelodeon and Toon Disney.

Television shows, which have characters with admirable values, may impact the relationship between children and other people positively. On the other hand, some television shows may have negative impacts on society. Some examples of such shows are violent games and pornographic shows (Williams 1986). Both violent games and pornographic shows may have an effect on the moral values of children (Datta 2007).

However, the issue of children watching unsuitable content is solvable through screening. For instance, parents can use technology to watch and control programs and content watched by their children (Hobart & Schiffman 2000). Some programs that parents should restrict children from viewing are those that have rapid scenes, or those that show violent behavior.

Monitoring what a child watches enables him to build a healthy relationship with the television (Hobart & Schiffman 2000). Parents can as well choose shows that are rich in educational content, or children to view. Some shows for young children have no educational value, and parents should restrict such programs for school going children (Datta, A 2007).

Weather channels make people understand the needs of their bodies since they offer guidance on what to wear. Most people watch television channels that forecast weather before deciding on what to wear. On the other hand, watching television often may harm the body through causing eye sight problems and malnutrition, in children who are frequent television viewers.

Lastly, television helps people in a certain part of the world to understand how people in other countries live. There are people who like to know about others in oversea countries, but they cannot afford the money for travel. Television programs that focus on other countries help to bridge this gap.

Such programs focus on people from different cultures and through watching them a person can realize how others behave. However, television shows may exaggerate, or give false information about lifestyles of people in other countries, thus creating false images among viewers.

References

Datta, A 2007, Effects of television and the viewers, Mittal Publications, New Delhi.

Fisch, S 2004, Childrens learning from educational television: sesame street and beyond, Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah.

Hobart, M & Schiffman, Z 2000, Information ages: literacy, numeracy, and the computer revolution, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.

McLuhan, M 1964, Television the timid giant: understanding media, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.

Williams, TM 1986, The impact of television: a natural experiment in three communities, Academic Press, Orlando.

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Positive Effects of Television on the Way People Understand Themselves

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