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Posts tagged ‘Television’

Feb 27

The Sedentary Life

An article from Time by staff writer Alice Park focuses on the physical health effects of kids’ television viewing. The article summarizes the findings of researchers from the US and Spain who studied inactivity in 111 children ranging from 3 to 8 years old. The researchers found that of television, Internet and video games, television is the worst for kids. They found that kids who watch excessive television are more likely to have higher blood pressure, even if they’re at a healthy weight.

Kid watching TV on the couch, eating potato chips (click for source)

What makes television worse than other sedentary activities? The findings suggest that kids watching television are likely to be eating unhealthy snacks, which could explain the rise in blood pressure. They also note that watching television right before bed stimulates kids’ minds and keeps them up. This lack of sleep affects metabolism and can cause weight gain.

While the main concerns of parents about television in the 1950s was the morality and emotional effects of television, rather than its physical effects. Family values were also central to television rhetoric. “In advice literature of the period, mass media became a central focus of concern as experts told parents how to control and regulate media in ways that promoted family values,” writes Spigel in “Seducing the Innocent.” Spigel and modern parents have similar concerns, however, when it comes to turning off the tube. Concern for kids with the “telebugeye” came about along with concerns for kids “habits of hygiene, nutrition and decorum” (p. 147). Parents have feared the effects on kids’ television-viewing habits since television’s invention, but now they have there is evidence of how detrimental “vegging out” in front of the TV can be.

For a post on the same article, please see Mira’s blog post.

Feb 27

Babies and TV

Einstein Baby from mymommatoldme.com

In an article on the TLC website titled, “Is it OK for Babies to Watch TV?” contributing writer Jacob Silverman discusses the negative effects that TV watching has on babies. In the article Silverman addresses several studies which found positive correlations between time spent watching TV and difficulty reading. From these studies, many psychologists and educators have recommended that parents limit their children’s TV consumption. But what about TV programs that claim to be educational for children? Silverman says that studies have been released that show programs like “Baby Einstein” may actually hinder child development. While these programs are very popular, they mostly contain rapidly moving images to attract babies’ attention, rather than active dialogue. Parents think that because shows like “Baby Einstein” are supposed to be educational, it makes it more okay for them to use the TV as a kind of babysitter while they are doing chores around the house and can’t devote their full attention to their baby. This poses a problem because of the sensitivity of babies’ brain development before the age of 2. During this time babies are forming important neural connections and the best way to do this is by providing interactive stimulation, which most programs claiming to be educational fail to do. In one study published in the Journal of Pediatrics, vocabulary development of babies 8-16 months old was studied as a function of watching programs like “Baby Einstein.” It was found that for every hour a day that a child watched these programs, they knew six to eight fewer words compared to children of the same age who did not watch them. Studies suggest that the best way to encourage proper brain development among children is to have parents interact with them and if parents do allow babies to watch TV than it is best to watch with them and provide explanations for the content.

Silverman’s critique of “educational” programing is relatable to the veldt in Ray Bradbury’s story “The Veldt” because the parents in “The Veldt” thought that by providing their children with this new technology they were helping to entertain them and enhance their lives, when in reality the veldt was detrimental to their well being and inhibited interaction between them and their parents. While programs like “Baby Einstein” are not as crazy as the veldt, they do make parents think they have the benefit of educating children while keeping them busy. Overall it seems the most important way to influence children’s well being is by providing them with personal interactions. Also “The Veldt” and Silverman’s article show that it is important to know the real costs and benefits of programs that may be sold as beneficial to children but in reality are not.

Feb 27

Silence that Idiot Box!

In Jeff Jacoby’s article on the harmful effects of watching television on children, called Silence that idiot box!,  he argues that letting children watch extended periods of television on a daily basis is no different than giving them a drug that produces zombie like effects. He cites several other articles, including scientific publications from both the 1960’s and today, in his rant against what he also refers to as the “boob tube.” He points out that children who watch one or more hours a day of television are more likely to have poor assignment completion rates and negative attitudes towards school. Jacoby sums up a 2005 study published by the American Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine with these words: “Increased time spent watching television during childhood and adolescence was associated with a lower level of educational attainment by early adulthood.” He also points out studies which show correlation between children watching television and being more likely to smoke, be overweight, or suffer from sleep difficulties and high cholesterol.

Daily views of television in different countries from Boston.com

It is clear that that Jacoby is rabidly against the high volume of television watching that goes on in the world of children, but it might help to understand his point of view if we better understand his background. Jeff Jacoby works for the Boston Herald, is a nationally recognized conservative voice, he briefly practiced law, and has been a commentator for WBUR.

Jacoby points out children watching an extended period of television, and this relates to Bradbury’s story of The Veldt because of the fact that the children in the story Peter and Wendy have been corrupted by the nursery. The facts that the children would much rather have the nursery than have their parents are an extreme of the theory that children can be corrupted by television. In the story, The Veldt, the children are so dependent with the technology that natural activities seem like a chore to them. The fact that the children questioned and complained when their father wanted to move to a different house because the technology has been corrupting them shows that the authority of the household was not the parents but the technology. At the end, the children killed their parents with the help of technology controlling their overall thoughts. This story shows a fictional consequence of how technology can affect and corrupt children.

Feb 27

What Kids, or People, Should NOT Be Watching

With all the parents organizations and committees telling other parents what is appropriate for their kids to watch, the kids are stuck watching some really dumb shows.  According to the Parents Television Council the number one show that kids should be allowed to watch is Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.  Parents are always concerned with the content of shows, but this show, I believe has absolutely no educational value and barely any entertaining content, unless you think a grown man [Ty Pennington] crying and acting like a fool every five seconds is entertainment.  The show focuses on the carpenter Ty Pennington, who builds houses for the less fortunate.  The premise of the show seems as if it would be teaching kids good moral values such as giving to those who are less fortunate which is good and all but many of those people end up losing the house within the year because they cannot afford the house payments and the cost to maintain the houses are extremely high.  The dialogue of the show is also poorly written, if at all, and it comes out sounding very cheesy.  I believe shows like this cause people to become less intelligent and I would rather have my kids watch The Simpsons or Family Guy especially if I had to watch the shows with them.

The show deemed worst for kids to watch was Family Guy.  I do believe that some of the content of the show is somewhat inappropriate, but a lot of it goes over the kid’s heads anyway, and the dialogue is actually entertaining.  The show might make fun of pop culture in a sometimes vulgar way but they usually do it cleverly.  Family Guy can be pretty witty at times compared to Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.  The writers for Family Guy at least seem intelligent and I would rather have my kids watch a show written well.  I watched this show when I was younger with my brother and I know that I was never affected negatively by what I was seeing and hearing.

Spigel states in Welcome to the Dreamhouse that “mass media have been seen as a threatening force that circulates forbidden secrets to children,” but parents cannot shield their kids from everything they consider to be inappropriate all the time, they will learn these “secrets” eventually and when they do it does not mean that the kids will becomes delinquents, chances are most kids will turn out completely fine.  I do not advocate passive parenting, but with all the shows that are seen as inappropriate by overprotective parents, kids will eventually have nothing to watch.

Family Guy from google images

Feb 27

Modern Family goes too Far?

Cast of Modern Family

Huffington Post writer Ann Brenoff states that she is a big fan of “Modern Family” and that she loves the shows, “smart humor and characters”.  But in this article she rips the show and the Writers Guild of America, for letting a particular episode of “Modern Family” air.  The episode as she describes it is titled, “Virgin Territory” and deals with the sex life of the high school senior Haley who apparently has been sexually active for a while now with her boyfriend.  Then the father, Phil, says that he is the cool dad and should be more ok with his daughter being sexually active.  Brenoff takes offense to this statement and the rest of her article writes about how kids aren’t having sex as much as they used to be and that this show shouldn’t be showing lies to the youth of the country.  Brenoff then states that she knows that teens aren’t ready to be having sex by stating, “Seventeen-year-olds may be physically ready to have intercourse, but emotionally they are far from being able to handle it.”  Then she ends her article by stating that the writers of “Modern Family” should have had Haley hold out from sex with her boyfriend and that she has to wait until college.  Brenoff has a clear stance on what children/teens should see on T.V, and that is that T.V. is way to inappropriate for minds of our youth.

 

This article defienetly relates to fear in parenting that Chudacoff talks about in “The Commercialization and Co-optation of Children’s Play”.  Chudacoff commonly talked about the idea that T.V and videogames shaped the minds of young and inspired them in some way.  He states, “Oppurtunities for fantasy play mushroomed, but at the same time character and story lines shaped children’s amusements in a way that, at least in some fashion, overrode independent imagination” (pg. 185).  To me, this quote means that the imagination of a children’s mind is corrupted by some of what they see on T.V and that their imagination is based on some of the plots and characters they see.  So, a child instead of dreaming about powder-puff girls and cupcakes are now dreaming about the sex life of Haley on “Modern Family”.

 

Another relation to a reading from class, is the idea of who is the filter between the kid and what they see on T.V.  Spigel and her piece titled “Welcome to the Dreamhouse” argue that the parents, more specifically the mother, are the filter to their child’s T.V schedule.  Brenoff from the Huffington Post says something different in that, “The most-powerful lobbying group in America is the Writers guild of America.”  She then goes on and rips the writers of “Modern Family” and the guild for letting this air, but according to Spigel she has no business doing so and that is because this should be the mothers job not to let her child see it.  So overall, the ideas Brenoff talks about n her article and what we have been dealing with in class are very similar.  Why are parents scared of T.V?  Well according to Brenoff it is because of shows like this.  But with what we have discussed, there is still no way to tell how a teen or child would take in this information about sex, but somebody must relegate it, but we have to figure out How and who must relegate the television?

Feb 27

Ni Ni Ni Ni Ni Ni Ni Nick NICKELODEON!

Growing up in the 1990’s, I spent countless hours glued to a television that was seemingly stuck on one channel, Nickelodeon.  Nickelodeon is a network aimed at children and preteens; its shows vary from animated, educational programs directed at younger children (2-5 y.o.), to animated, entertaining programs for the grade school child, and also to programs with teenage actors who deal with friendships, relationships, school, and other issues, primarily for the preteen/teen audience.  After a few years of minimal success, Nickelodeon hit it big in the ’90s and the beginning of the 21st century.  It opened an attraction at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, and created a series of animated shows, referred to as Nicktoons, that shaped pop culture for the “’90s kid” generation; my favorites included Rugrats, Doug, and Hey Arnold!  (And as I got a little older, All That and Clarissa Explains It All became quick favorites.)

Nickelodeon Promo.  1996.  From Youtube.com.

Because Nickelodeon was a network for kids, all of their commercials and advertisements were for the latest toys and newest kid’s meals at this and that fast-food joints.  There was even a promo after every live taping of All That that told young viewers that the show was taped in front of a live studio audience at Nickelodeon Studios Orlando, Florida, somewhere I would’ve loved to visit as much as any other kid wanted to go to Disneyland.  With all the time I spent watching Nick shows, I was probably exposed to just as much, if not more, commercialization.  Unknowingly, I had become a child consumer.

In The Commercialization and Co-optation of Children’s Play, Chudacoff mentions Nickelodeon as a contributor to the development of children’s culture.  He states that “Nickelodeon and Disney, as well as national networks, opened new opportunities for program producers, retailers, manufacturers, and, especially, marketers to shape children’s tastes and desires” (pg. 178).  As a child consumer, I was completely mesmerized by all sorts of advertisements for new Barbie dolls, Polly Pocket, and entertaining board games like Mouse Trap.  Most, if not all, of the toys I was given as a child were a direct result of my exposure to these products via commercials seen while watching Nickelodeon.  Some of the animated shows also began to promote their own products, offering “a ‘backstory’ of fantasy with [its] product to create a meaningful relationship between toy and child,” as stated by Chudacoff (pg. 180).  Even today, if you were to flip to the Nickelodeon channel it would be highly obvious that all commercials are made for children exclusively.

Nickelodeon's signature orange splatter logo.

Apart from the entertainment I found through Nickelodeon, I also had easy access to a medium that displayed objects I desired; commercials on Nickelodeon were sort of short video representations of most toys in a Toys “R” Us catalog, I even derived many of my birthday and Christmas lists from such advertisements.  However, despite the excessive advertisements that were thrown my way at each and every commercial break, I fully enjoyed what I was engaging in, t.v. shows that I could relate to and discuss with my peers (even if we were all just kids).

Feb 27

This is All That

All That cast

One of my favorite TV shows growing up was All That. All That was a comedy sketch variety show that had musical performances by the “it” pop stars at the time. All That began in 1994 and continued until 2005. The show aired on Nickelodeon I think on Friday evenings. The show was created by Brian Robbins and Mike Tollin. The All That cast consisted of 7-8 adolescences some where around the ages of 12-15. All That was structured much the same way that SNL is structured. There is usually an opening skit followed by the intro, and then followed by different comedic sketches and finally closed with a musical performance. Most of the comedic sketches poked fun at current stereotypes or certain elements of pop culture. After listening to the Mad Magazine lecture in class it is quite apparent that programs like All That were heavily influenced by Mad Magazine. Mad Magazine was created in 1952 and offered a satirical look on culture, the media, the nuclear family and so forth. Mad Magazine paved the road for TV shows like Mad TV, All That, and SNL to exist. Whenever Mad Magazine came out parents were worried about how much it was influencing their children. Growing up I never had an issue with my parents not letting me watch All That because my parents thought it was funny themselves. When I was younger I never really thought too much about the sketches, but now that I am older some of the sketches could have influenced other children. One sketch that struck me as offensive was one in which Kenan Thompson and Nick Cannon played the stereotypical Black woman cashier. This sketch is filled with lots of stereotypes most of which portray Black women in a negative light. Being a children’s program this sketch can negatively influence and strengthen certain stereotypes children have of others.

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