lose control of their viewing and their parents have no time to
identify whether a particular program makes sense for their son or daughter or
can bring harm. The average household with children has a television set on over
sixty hours a week and during this sixty hours this window into the real world
is trying to change our children. Does television spoil our children who begin
viewing their first programs regularly three or four years before entering
school? One high school student wrote: "When you start hearing Barbara
Walters talking about mass murder like it is a batch of oatmeal cookies, it is
going to effect you". It is clear to people that those who watch more
violence are more aggressive because of the emotional and psychological effect
of television. Children start to be more apathetic towards violence in real life
and less willing to stop it. Programmers try to keep the kids in front of
television by using violent actions in cartoons rather than educational
situations in shows. They use the some rule as teachers who know that children's
attention is limited in time. Everything must be exciting! A friend of mine
noticed that her kids started to be ruder with their friends after a certain
number of hours spent in front of television. Watching and listening all the
time about murder children know exactly how to communicate, why, when and under
what circumstances they could do it. Beside this from what children see on TV
they may understand that when you hurt somebody you get resolution of your
problem. Not only does violence on television have a bad impact on children.
Television may change children's activities. How often do we watch our children
playing in the fresh air? Do they develop time and interest for reading and
communicating with their peers? Television is their best friend, favorite book
and all-powerful magician. However, we know that television can not replace a
book, and be a substitute of full value for friend because television is able to
make us just passive viewers. When reading a book one has to think and analyze.
When watching television children's attention is focused on the action of the
program, and not on the question of why characters did something and what is the
explanation for this. For example, reading the book ,"Alice in
Wonderland" , children have questions on how to understand meaning of some
poems. They need to think about words that have different meanings. The author
makes his readers think and develop their attitude toward everything that is
going on. Watching the movie with the same name "Alice in Wonderland"
we lose all those important elements. All different programs are designed for
different goals and most of these goals can be helpful for children. Those who
think that television viewing is beneficial would say that children can learn
from all kinds of programs. Those are instructional and educational television,
which are widely available not only on commercial, but also on public television
stations. However, we must mention the unintentional learning that takes place.
The purpose of some programs (such as " Bernie and his friends " and
different films) is to teach children how to control their behavior. As a
result, in most cases, television has a really negative impact on people and
only those viewers who are able to choose programs wisely may find television
beneficial for their development. In conclusion, let us think about television's
impact on children and not allow our children to be fooled by the most
attractive " window" in our houses.