Television & Children

When I think about something that really caught my eye about chapter two I would have to say it was the information about television and children. I personally believe that television can have a major effect on children because the mind is still developing. I thought it was interesting that as early as the 1950s a study was preformed by Wilbur Schramm and his colleagues at Stanford University. The text said that most children begin watching television when they are two years old and are regular viewers by the time they are three.



These statistics to me are very eye catching. A three year old is very impressionable and picks up a lot more than what you would think. Many people when thinking about a three year old would think that three is an age where they are still very “baby” like and television cannot have that huge of an effect.
However, three is an age when the child can walk and talk and is a time when they learn basic skills and develop a lot of knowledge of what is right and wrong. They repeat back phrases of songs that they heard in the car, they can tell you why the power rangers are so awesome, and most of them can tell you why they love Hannah Montana on the Disney channel.


Wilbur Schramm said, “From ages three through sixteen children are likely to devote more time to television than to any other activity except sleep.”

This quote is hard to think about because to me it is somewhat sad. However, when I read this quote I thought right away that it was most likely true. I know that Wilbur did this study in the 1950s but I think even more so now adults can abuse the television and use it as a babysitting tool.


When I was younger I remember going to my grandmother’s house where my dad lived and anytime I would say I was bored the response was to go put in a movie. When children are young they are still very impressionable and school work isn’t something they hate. I think if the response would have been lets work on an activity book or lets color would have been more beneficial. Learning these skills at an early age are so helpful and probably would have done more good then watching different tapes of Barney’s Adventures.




The text also stated that children with high IQs tend to be heavy television viewers when they are young but light viewers as they get older. Then it said less intelligent viewers showed the opposite pattern. The conclusion I gathered from this are the children that maybe need that extra push towards school and academics are actually the ones that tend to be watching hours of television daily. It said by the age of twelve the kids were averaging four hours of television a day.

Four hours a day to me seems like a lot of television. If you think about an average day for a school aged child they are at school from anywhere between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. so if they began watching television right when they came home and watched for four hours straight it is already 7 p.m. when do these kids have time for anything else? It seems as though television replaces any other activity or hobby that they might want to do. As someone who works with children and only wants them to succeed and do great things in life these statistics are sad and for the kids sake I hope that they are not true for a lot of children.