Television has a huge influence on children. Over the past decades, more and more young children are sitting in front of the television for extended periods of time, and the increasing obsession with TV has been found to be directly related to weight gain. In 2003, a longitudinal study that followed children from preschool to adolescence was conducted by the Framingham Child's study. They concluded that children who watched more than three hours of television a day, on average, had gained more weight than children who watch less than an hour and a half a day. This is detrimental to the development of obesity in America. .
Television is also less aimed toward family programming now than it was twenty years ago. More children are subjected to adult content which could influence their behavior later in life. An article written by Alcohol Health and Research World concluded that adolescents who were subjected to commercials advertising alcohol were more likely to start underage drinking than those who were not. The amount of television and what children are exposed to has a lot to do with their health and who they will be later in life. One thing that has dramatically changed the world in the last few years is the World Wide Web. People have all the information they could ever need right at their fingertips which is not necessarily a good thing, especially when some children are able to dictate what they do on their computers. .
Children may not realize that what they do behind a computer screen really can have devastating consequences. There are 18% of children who use chat rooms, video chat, and other methods of message. All of those children is more liable to encounter a child predator who seeks to create a relationship with an unsuspecting juvenile. Another negative effect the internet may have is that the information an adolescent may view might be falsified. The information on the Internet is uncontrolled and there is no way to check its reliability or how acceptable references are.
