The Effects Of Media On Preschoolers Essay -- Media

The use of media (television, video games, phones, music, and computers) by young children is becoming more and more common in everyday life. Children are in front of media screens now more than anytime in history. Parents are allowing, encouraging, and promoting the use of media in many forms. There are endless sources available for parents to purchase for the use with infants, toddlers,a nd preschoolers from movies to games and videos. (Ravichandran, France de Bravo, 2010, â€Å"Yound Children and Screentime†.) Although these media tupes are readily available, whether they be for entertainment or educational use, are they really in the children's best interest? According to the American Acadamy of Pediatrics (1999) the average child spends twenty one hours a week watching television. Children that watch television are more likely to be aggressive, obese, and learn at slower rates. It also states that an average viewer is subjected to 14,000 sexual references a year and only a handful of those encounters are of responsible sexual behavior. Not to mention the $8 billion a year that alcohol and tobacco manufacturers spend on alcohol and tobacco references in television and movies. (AAP, 1999 â€Å"Media Education†) Research shows that children under three years old should not have screen time at all. In fact, young children that watched television were much more likely to have reading and attention problems. The type of programming didn't matter on the results. Children were impacted negatively even if they weren't watching. Having the television on in the background of their play was enough to influence them negatively. The play was not as intense or as focused, and the children didn't play as long as they otherwise would have, had ... ...uwosh.edu/psychology/rauscher.htm Rauscher,FH Zupan,MA (2000) Early Childhood Research, 15 (2) 215-228 Oshkosh,WI: University of Wisconsin Classroom Keyboard Instruction Improves Kindergarten Children's Spatial- Temporal Performance: A Field Experiment. Retrieved from http:// www.uwosh.edu/psychology/rauscher.htm Ravichandran,P France de Bravo,B,MPH (2010) Young Children and Screen Time (TV, DVD's, Computer) National Research Center for Women and families Retrieved from http://www.center4research.org/2010/05/young-children-and-screen... Roberts,DF Christenson,PG Gentile,DA (2003) The Effects of Violent music on Children and Adolescents Retrieved from http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/~dgentile/106027-08.pdf Sibal,K(2004) Exploring the Effects of Music on Young Children Retrieved from http://www.more4kids.com/Articles/article1009.htm