Beginning back in ancient times of message couriers, and progressing to newspapers, film, radio, television, and now the Internet, the mass media is unquestionably the principal way to receive information in recent times. There is quite a dichotomy in mass media. At the same time of being an essential means of socializing people values and beliefs and educating, it also has horrible consequences of being able to negatively affect and corrupt people. This paper will examine both sides of this problem, focusing on the effects of a particular mass medium, television, on a particular group of society, children. In particular it will examine studies that try to show both positive and negative affects on children.
Television is by far the most popular and influential medium in which children are exposed. It probably could be argued vehemently that television, in today's world of two-income families, is more influential than parents are to children. Some interesting statistics pertaining to the time spent by children watching television include the following: Most children watch an average of 28 hours of per week. Children spend 1500 hours a week watching television and 900 hours in the classroom. (Bibliography #7) As it can be seen children spend a disproportionate amount of their time watching television, compared to more "worthwhile?endeavors.
Although these statistics reveal that children watch an enormous amount of television, it does not give any indication of the type of programming that children are watching. It can be argued by some that television has no good effects. But in reality, television has an incredible upside. A study by Aletha C. Huston and John C. Wright examined the studies conducted that tried to portray television as having negative effects on children, and proved that most of these studies are flawed.
One criticism that is frequently brought up is that television causes viewers to become passive.