Understanding the impact of the media on children

Take a selection of say ten children and the chances are that you will find more than half of them doing things that are difficult to comprehend. They will have little shame and no such thing as respect. They believe that foul language is in style, and some will even think that talking to elders including their parents rudely makes them look very clever thanks to the media, especially films and serials on television. Today the media distracts children from moral values by trying to only entertain them and movie classifications are made rather superficially with even children cartoon clips on television uplifting children’s fantasies by portraying kisses and having girls dressed in sexy outfits. This explains why young children under the age of ten who regularly watch cartoons sometimes talk about loving members of the opposite sex.

Why do children have to see so much violence and sex on television? Why do they have to see so much terrorism on news channels that make them sometimes even dream of terror? Why do they have to listen to indecent music? Why do they have to see cigarette or alcohol adverts in the newspaper when these are unhealthy and deadly? Similarly why do they have to see unhealthy foods being promoted by the media?

Is it because the media owners think that children will not take them seriously? Or is it because they are ignorant of how their messages will be received by children? Or is it because they believe that children who are entertained grow up to be more social in life. The truth is that media companies, like other companies in the world, yearn to earn maximum profits. In their quest for revenue they often do not care if their programmes lead to a poor school performance, bad behaviour, drug abuse, smoking and the like. At face value they do appear to show concern but a preview of material that children are exposed to contradicts this.

Many schools recommend students to hear and see the news on television. However the news has been full of crisis, clashes and air crashes and there is so much violence in the news and so many cruelties that watching the news is sometimes just likes watching a violent movie on TV. Very rarely and only in extreme cases does one hear or see a pre-warning that the material to be aired contains graphic material not good for the faint-hearted or for children.

One might say that why the fuss about the impact of the media when the viewing of television programs is controlled by age restrictions. The fact is that such restrictions often depend on who is rating the programmes and it is not uncommon to find unsuitable material even on family channels.

It is really scary that children only have to put a movie into the VCR, open a magazine, click on a Web site, or watch TV to experience all kinds of bad, dirty or evil messages. It is really that simple to see the wrong things and even gamble on the Internet. Foul music, nudity and foul language are among the issues that children first see because of the media. The media also encourages them into a world of make-believe where flashy cars, luxurious houses, expensive telephones, trendy sun glasses, clothes and the like are the norm when in actual fact such luxuries are beyond the scope of many. When children are brainwashed to a point of no return they are tempted to pursue even unjustified means in order to be able to afford living in style.

Often students can’t think in school leading to poor performances because of watching too much television. Similarly young students push and kick other innocent students because of watching too much television. There is also an increase of eating unhealthy fast foods because of television commercials that also promote smoking and alcohol drinking as being trendy.

The media does have a number of good programmes but children are often tempted to watch what is less educative because this is more entertaining. There may be a few exceptions like sports, Reality TV, National Geography and Discovery Channels but what children need is a media that is only good and entertaining rather than being good, bad and ugly as it now is.