I feel TV is inherently bad in some ways; one of my biggest concerns is that the way things are presented is artificial, designed to manipulate the viewer into thinking the way the creators of the show or commercial want him or her to think. Commercials are particularly bad.
Studies show (I don’t have the links, but I bet Google will find them) that there’s correlation between TV-watching time and propensity for violence and other bad behavior in children. I want to say it’s correlated with poorer academic performance as well, but I’m not sure if this was included or not.
That’s not causation, though. Parents who let their kids watch a lot of TV may also be less likely to act against bad behavior (by disciplining them, providing better models for behavior, and so forth). A large amount of TV-watching time could simply be an indicator of poor parenting, rather than the actual cause of bad behavior. I don’t know whether or not this is the case, but I’m wary of studies that only look at surface-level correlations.
Edit: However, after a bit of searching I found this page which summarizes several results that go beyond basic correlation.
one of my biggest concerns is that the way things are presented is artificial, designed to manipulate the viewer into thinking the way the creators of the show or commercial want him or her to think
This is true, but I’m pretty sanguine about it. The reality is, my kids are going to live in a world where they are exposed to media manipulation—protecting them from it at a young age isn’t going to encourage the kind of skepticism required to combat it later. Already, my almost-4-year-old seems to discount how awesome things look in a commercial due to past disappointments.
I feel TV is inherently bad in some ways; one of my biggest concerns is that the way things are presented is artificial, designed to manipulate the viewer into thinking the way the creators of the show or commercial want him or her to think. Commercials are particularly bad.
Studies show (I don’t have the links, but I bet Google will find them) that there’s correlation between TV-watching time and propensity for violence and other bad behavior in children. I want to say it’s correlated with poorer academic performance as well, but I’m not sure if this was included or not.
That’s not causation, though. Parents who let their kids watch a lot of TV may also be less likely to act against bad behavior (by disciplining them, providing better models for behavior, and so forth). A large amount of TV-watching time could simply be an indicator of poor parenting, rather than the actual cause of bad behavior. I don’t know whether or not this is the case, but I’m wary of studies that only look at surface-level correlations.
Edit: However, after a bit of searching I found this page which summarizes several results that go beyond basic correlation.
This is true, but I’m pretty sanguine about it. The reality is, my kids are going to live in a world where they are exposed to media manipulation—protecting them from it at a young age isn’t going to encourage the kind of skepticism required to combat it later. Already, my almost-4-year-old seems to discount how awesome things look in a commercial due to past disappointments.