Is watching TV bad for children
With the advancement of technology, the greatest difference between children now and in the past is that children now enjoy more luxurious usage of newly invented technologies. Nowadays, children virtually superfluously spend their after-school life on watching television programs, playing computer games and Internet chatting apart from completing their necessary homework. Though it is well debatable on if it is good or bad for children to watch television, however, I do think that watching appropriate amount of television programs is good for the development of a child.
First of all, television programs provide an extensive amount of information and knowledge for children to learn on their own. It is a well-known fact that, with audio and visual aid in a learning process, a child will pick up knowledge more easily rather than broadly absorbing whatever his teacher regardless of his interests delivers. For instance, the Discover Channel provides services of introductions to science and technology in a very comprehensive manner. In fact, TV programs provided by this channel convey knowledge by giving many detailed examples from the actual world, instead of producing the theoretical models. Watching television programs of this kind does no harm to the children, but in fact, provides more comprehensive education to them.
Further more, watching television widens a child’s mindset. In order for a child to grow into a matured adult, he needs to have an astute brain to adapt to the society. Television programs provide a lot of up-to-date news and information on current affairs. By watching television, one is able to receive information in a relatively shorter period of time. Empirically, a better-informed child is more likely to mature earlier than his peers. This also enables him to gain experiences for his future work as a member of the society.
However, in order for a child to grow in the right direction, appropriate programs have to be selected for him to watch. Otherwise, he may end up watching programs that may misguide him in this global world. This may be very dangerous to the physical and mental health of a child, as a little bit of misbehavior may cause great harm to the child. A good example is a TV drama series where a princess demonstrated some dangerous actions to the audience. Unfortunately, most audience of this series is children. Due to their lack of mature mindset and appropriate parental guidance, they ended up having followed the action of the actors, and getting themselves into serious injuries, and some even died. Hence, it is inevitable to see that watching television programs without appropriate guidance from parents may result in serious troubles for children.
The advancement of technology has allowed children now to have a more enjoyable life compared to their parents. At the same time, children are able to pick up knowledge from TV programs. However, parents need to pay close attention to the programs that their children watch to ensure that they are appropriate, so that their children will grow up healthily.
