Amber Almond

English 10/ Period 5

Ms. Gardner

29 October 2017

The Influence of Media on Child Development

In a world where media is a constant sound, we must hold on to our own thoughts in

order to keep them from being absorbed into the static sounds of today's news. My name is

Amber Almond. How long does it take you to turn on the news? What about to pull up a video

on YouTube? The media has full control over what we know. They decide which stories matter

to us most and alter America's way of thinking. A majority of children in America and the world

are told of sexual assault, major accidents, and natural disasters just by being allowed to go

online. The media is causing our children to become hostile and detached. We are responsible.

For 60 plus years the world has feared that watching the media has caused children to be

hostile and aggressive. In the 1940’s America first began to question the effects of the new

media. In 1941 commercial television came out. Businesses were benefiting greatly. In 1980

children's exposure to the news boomed thanks to the sudden movement to put computers in

more homes and schools. The media snowballed and was picking up speed. Constantly being

exposed to these scenes of war, violence, and hate can cause a child to be upset- this is proven.

One report from Princeton claims,

Although research clearly demonstrates that well-designed, age-appropriate,

educational television can be beneficial to children of preschool age, studies on infants

and toddlers suggest that these young children may better understand and learn from
 real-life experiences than they do from a video. Moreover, some research suggests that

exposure to television during the first few years of life may be associated with poorer

cognitive development. (Future of Children 39)

According to a report from Children's Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati, 40% of

two-year-olds are watching television. The exposure causes children to act aggressively or

violently in later years as a teen and adult. Men became more physically aggressive while

women were verbally aggressive.

In our homes, the news is being broadcasted are children. According to Variety

magazine, Fox reports 1.72 million day viewers. 1.72 million homes tune in each day to be told

of world events. 1.72 million people are told of a war taking place miles and miles away. The

children are impressionable and vulnerable. They enter a watering hole of endless information.

Based on the news the children are watching, their opinions (specifically political) can change. A

pre-teen watching the Colbert report likely to become a liberal, where a pre-teen watching the

Sean Hannity Show will favor being conservative. As a child I did not watch as much television

and was never allowed to watch the news. Since watching the news on my own and growing

older I notice some of my opinions shift and I cannot help but wonder how I would act if I was

exposed to so much intense information so young.

If we all agree to take charge and inform our children we can hope for a better future.

The first ten articles that appear when you search “news” on google are negative information.

They need to see not only the latest terrorist attack but know of the man who's working hard to

help America gain safe drinking water. Yes there is bad in the world, there is pain and sadness

and it makes us human but pain and sadness is not humanity. Humanity is pain and sadness and
joy and thrills and a mix of emotion all swirling together round and round and round because we

are all spinning together. Together we are in charge of the change. Together we are the future.

By allowing the biased news to play we are allowing ourselves to lose what is ours and

only ours, our opinion. By allowing your children to only read the New York Times, a Trojan

horse in a sense, you are withholding them from an alternative, possible truth. The internet is a

shallow well. By allowing yourself to follow your opinion blindly is giving power to the major

manipulators that control the media today. The only way to stop this is to be aware and

acknowledge all forms of media.

The children of today are tomorrow's future. We are the past, now is the present, and

they are the future. It is our job to protect and teach them. Our children are wrongly riddled with

wrongs and rights. They are the deciding factor in what the world will become. As their

guidance, we cannot allow them to follow blindly but we must lead them to be wise, well

rounded, and thoughtful. If we must inform them of the wars then let them know the good still in

our world. Let them know of the war heroes, of the rain that finally hit a country suffering

drought, of the little boy who beat cancer. Do not let the hate fill their vision so much that they

do not see the good. Can we be good? Without good, there is no humanity and without humanity

there is no good. Synonyms for humanity are; compassion and brotherly love and fraternity and

fellow feeling and philanthropy and humaneness and kindness and consideration and

understanding and sympathy and tolerance. Without these, we are no longer the human race. We

must rely on our children to be all of these things and more.

 Work Cited

“Impact of media use on children and youth.” Paediatrics & Child Health, Pulsus Group Inc,

2003, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2792691/.

American Psychological Association, American Psychological Association,

www.apa.org/topics/kids-media/.

“Media Effects on Children's Social and Moral Development.” Elsevier SciTechConnect,

scitechconnect.elsevier.com/media-childrens-social-moral-development/.

http://scitechconnect.elsevier.com/media-childrens-social-moral-development/

Kirkorian, Heather L., et al. “The Impact of Background Television on Parent–Child

Interaction.” ​Child Development​, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 14 Sept. 2009,

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01337.x/full.Kirkorian, Heather L., et al.

“The Impact of Background Television on Parent–Child Interaction.” ​Child Development​,

Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 14 Sept. 2009,

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01337.x/full.

“The Influence of Media on Young Children's Development.” ​ZERO TO THREE​,

www.zerotothree.org/resources/284-the-influence-of-media-on-young-children-s-development.