We live in an era where both parents are often working and children have more unsupervised time. Watching television is the number one after-school activity for children. They spend approximately twenty-two to twenty-eight hours per week viewing television, making this activity the most common out of all child activities, besides sleeping. Each year children spend about nine-hundred hours in the classroom compared to the fifteen-hundred hours they spend watching T.V. One recent study found that thirty-two percent of two to seven year olds and sixty-five percent of eight to eighteen year olds have television sets in their bedrooms, (Abelard, p1). Considering these statistics, it is safe to say that television has a huge impact on the lives of its viewers. Since children are so impressionable, the amount and content of the programs they are viewing raises many concerns from parents. Children are constantly learning through television social behaviors that will last them throughout their lives; so it is important, for the well being of our children, that a positive effect be the outcome of the many hours they spend in front of the "tube". In this paper I will give you an idea of how television programs for children have progressed throughout time, and give numerous results, both positive and negative, of the effects that television has had, or can have, on our children.
Television first was invented in the 1950's. Its program themes followed the radio tradition of action/adventure, consisting of shows such as "The Lone Ranger, Lassi"e, Howdy Doody, Kukla, and Fran and Ollie. In the 1960's, the cost of T.V.'s decreased, which in turn increased their availability. Children's television also grew in range with the arrival of cartoons such as Flinstones, Jetsons, and Bullwinkle. This is when the idea of "Saturday morning cartoons" came about. In the 1970's, sixty and ninety minute shows were put into play.