Research Paper - Maria Boleaga

Maria Boleaga

English 101- Research Paper

May 18, 2015

Media Screen as a Way of Brain Development?

    How long does you child spend  a day on screen media? No parent would give an accurate answer. However, in recent studies children are spending about 7 hours a day including the weekends. Children should be spending less hours on screen media, such as watching TV, playing games on computers or tablets. But spending hours on screen media is not the only problem that parents should be concern with. The concerns are what kind of TV show programs or games these children are watching and how media can affect in the future. Screen media can be a negative for children's development as well as a positive. Children who spend more time on screen media are more likely to have a negative effect than a positive effect.

The average of children spending more time on screen media is about 83%. Children of ages 6 months to 6 year olds spend more time on screen medias. The average a child spends on a screen media is about 2 to 3 hours a day. This has been a problem because when the child gets older, the only way that child would like to get entertain is by using a type of screen media. Screen media includes, such as TV, computers, tablets/iPad and other kind of electronic. However, the most screen media that children tend to use is a television. Since parents want their children to learn new words they believe that watching TV at a young age (up to 6 months) can help them in their brain development and cognitive skills. The campaign for a commercial-free childhood (CCFC) said that "56% of parents of young children believe that baby videos are good for the child's development". Therefore, these parents believe that keeping a child entertain with any type of screen medias can help them gain skills that would help them once they go to school, but parents should be more concerned about how much can a screen media really affect their children. As I mention before children spend hours on any type of media but TV has influenced children's behavior. The TV/video watching used in a day is an average of 1 hour and half a day but including the weekends is 4x the weekday use. An article by researchers  "Psychologist look at television", have done a study of how television has impacted children in their cognitive and social behavior.Therefore, children's interactions with others seem more like imitations of what they see from the TV  because shows tend to change the scene quickly so the child could keep on watching.  Therefore, because of rapid scene change children aren't able to learn anything from what they are watching. To elaborate, more on how television influences children cognitive skills is that according to the study of "Psychologist look at television" they had proved that television actually decreases a child's cognitive skills. There is a few percentage of children ages 6 years and under who have asked for a tablet/IPad for Christmas, as we can see children seem more entertain by technology than any other kind of games. A book about "The use of Television and other screen medias" had statistics of how a child spends outside playing. The statistics was that children spend time outside and less time on their school work. The reason why is because since parents belief that leaving a child with a screen media they can develop their cognitive skills/brain development, therefore as children get older they have the same belief. Then again 33 % of parents had said that they have installed a TV in their child's bedroom.

Television in the bedroom along with other screen medias has not been beneficial for children. Having a screen medias in a child's bedroom has many negative impacts such as having bad sleeping patterns. Those whose children have a TV in their bedroom spend another hour at night watching their favorite show. There three main reason why parents installed a TV in their child's bedroom, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, they made some statistics that about 55% of the parents put a TV in the bedroom was so that the child can watch his/her own preferred show. Another reason is so that parents can have time to do their chores without no interruptions from their children (39%). The third reason is that it can help the children got to their bed early and while watching TV it can help them fall asleep faster. Children ages 6 and under do have difficulties falling asleep even as we grow up we still have difficulties going to sleep, so the only way one can sleep is probably by listening to relaxing music or reading a book. But however now parents thinking is that a television or any other kind of screen media has turn to a babysitter for the children, has been the number 1 option to solve a child's problems, whenever he/she is giving their parent a hard time. A mother of a 4-6 year old living in Columbus Ohio has said that TV has helped her child in many ways, she said:“My reasoning was that my little boy was extremely intelligent since birth. At one year old he was...putting his own DVDs in, skipping scenes, changing the volume. I thought it was a real good thing for him

to have his own TV because TV helped him grow at a very young age.”This mother beliefs are that having a TV in the bedroom is beneficial has she has her reasoning of how her child's is starting to learn to be independent. The relationship between the child and the TV in the bedroom is that, children are most likely to watch more TV and will surely become addicted, because 82% of children have a TV in the bedroom versus the 58% that doesn't own a TV and other media screens in the room. However, when there's screen medias around the house they can be a limit of rules, such as when children watch TV 63% of parents have emphasized rules. The lowest kind of screen media that parents rarely emphasize rules is the computer use, 48% of parents don't apply rules to their children using it versus the other 38% that does. More importantly, is that any type of screen media in the bedroom has set children's mind that it is the only way to get entertain and that they can learn new things. Therefore, there has been a another study that TV has been a great source of cognitive skills, such as learning the alphabet and their numbers.

     The impact of children using screen media can be both positive and negative because it is important to know what kind of program the child is watching or using. Whether it's television/video watching or an app being used by a tablet, children tend to get entertain and imitate what they see. This can lead to an aggressive behavior toward the people around them. There has been some statistic of which media screen has been the most influential to a child. The most influential media screen has been the television with a 75% of children watching while only 11% who play video games. This shows that television can catch a hold of the child's attention without no hesitations. The reason why children spent more hours watching television is because as I said previously parents want time for themselves to do things around the house, so the only way children would stay still is by putting the child near a TV. The outcome of this is that children can watch any type of show because parents are not supervising. Therefore, parents whose children spent hours watching TV should question themselves "What kind of content should my child be watching?" than  "Screen media is a way for a child to develop some learning skills." Content of the program is important because not only does it capture a child's attention but can also influence their behavior towards their family members. The kind of behavior that a child can have can either be an aggressive behavior, but there can also be positive behavior such as learning moral behavior.  There two types of contents, one is fast paced programs and the other is educational programs. These two types of contents have a different aspect and message to their viewers. Fast paced program is the type of program that every child enjoys watching. The types of programs/channels that fit in fast-paced programs are  nickelodeon, Disney and cartoon network. A study has been conducted by researchers, of how these two types of content gets a hold of the child's attention and how it affects their brain development. Fast paced programs scenes change every 11 seconds versus the educational program that changes every 34 seconds. Therefore, this had led to a decrease to their learning skills because children who put to watch fast paced they had a lower executive function than those who watch educational programs. Now as we learn the different types of contents we now learn how these two types can either help cognitive skills or develop an aggressive behavior.

    Barbara J. Wilson author of "Media and Children's Aggression, Fear and Altruism" suggested that screen media plays a role in children's social behavior and emotional development. To prove her statement about children's emotional development, there has been a study that the sesame street show has shown preschoolers about emotional situations and how one can recognize the kind of emotion the person is feeling. Therefore, as children grow up they understand emotional situations because of educational programs  like sesame street that give scenario examples of recent situations going on in our society. Furthermore, educational programs are informative and help children understand emotional situations. Another positive way the screen media has helped children's cognitive skills was that 2 years olds can learn words from videos but only limited  words. The reason why was because in a peer reviewed article researchers found out the comprehension has limited option to learn from unlike the production has unlimited. Additionally, researchers gave an example of how children were able to gain knowledge from watching videos and were able to produce them in their life, the reason is because of the production task. Nevertheless, screen media can be a positive influence to children, but not always especially when children enjoy watching fast-paced programs. To elaborate more, Wilson did a study of how much does fast-paced programs show and there was 70% of children's favorite show that  includes some violence and there were about 14 violent scenes changes in one hour. There was  another study of how these types of content influence an aggressive behavior. In this study children were given a list of  10 of their favorite and they had to check how frequently they watched the show and out of those 10, only 8 shows showed violent scenes such as saying offensive words.  To prove this in another peer-reviewed, researchers made a study of media violence. The results of this study was children who are expose to these types of contents and plus the violence that they see in their family they will imitate the aggressive behavior to people around them. Another study gives informative reason of how children have been affected by screen medias. Pre-school children spend more time watching TV, an average of three hours, because since they aren't full day students they spend the other half at home. The aggressive behavior can both be a long-term and short-term effect, but it will start of with  a short term effect to children. Especially does who have siblings because siblings sit and watch the same show and will always try to imitate what they see and  involve the behavior amongst themselves. However, not only does screen media develop aggressive behavior on children but has also impacted the family relationship and social skills.

 The more a child is exposed to a screen media, the harder it is to take a child a way from it. Viewing any kind of screen media can impact the child's life and their family. Now a days children spend an average of more than 2 hours on any screen media a day. However, as the child gets older the relationship with their family changes. Another kind of impact would be socializing with other peers and it can affect their health. As I mention before parents believe that giving a child a screen media at an early age they can gain cognitive skills. However, spending hours on a screen media can affect their sleeping patterns, family interaction and their learning skills. According to an article by Dr. Aric Sigman quoted another author that said "an hour on the internet reduces face-to-face time with family by close to twenty-four minutes. What this is trying to explain is that while children spend hours in a media screen and in between those hours there is only a few minutes of interaction with their family members. The university of California-Los Angeles found out that children's social skills are decreasing because of only having "eye-to-screen"  relationship with the screen media. Furthermore, they observed families interactions, and the results were that when the parents came back home the children didn't pay attention to them because they were paying attention to the screen media. Therefore this link to social skills because children we not able to show empathy to their parents and can go on further in their life, interacting with others. According CCFC they stated that children under 3 years cab have irregular sleep patterns because of the amount of hours spent in a screen media. They also stated that children ages 6 to 12 years old can sleep disturbances. To elaborate more, Dr. Sigman said that it is possible that children can have attentional problems because of early exposure to TV. Another effect is their health scientist had said that "children's bodies are made up of more fat than muscles", because children just sit and eat while watching TV. Children don’t get to see that spending time outdoors can help their health, the reason to this is because there only about 4% of the commercials that promote healthy eating. Parents should try to limit their children's screen media at a young age because as they grow up they will learn that only spending 2 hours or less is the best to spend on a screen media and the rest can be doing school work. And yet, this will help do better in school and be in engage in outdoor activities.

   To conclude, screen medias have some positive effect on children but overall there  is more negative influential behavior in children's life. Although there are some educational programs may not have a hold on the children's gaze but if the parent involves himself/herself watching TV their relationship can become closer. Besides the parent can be supervising his/her children show of how much violence is there in one episode of their children's favorite show. Therefore, parents should understand that what they believe about screen media is beneficial for their brain development at a young age can have different outcomes to the child's behavior. Parents should understand the difference between fast-paced programs  versus educational programs. Nevertheless, they should  see if screen media is actually developing their cognitive skills or is it developing aggressive behavior.

Citations:

Book:

Rideout, Victoria, and Elizabeth Hamel. The Media Family: Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers, Preschoolers and Their Parents. Menlo Park, CA: Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, 2006. Print.

Sigman, Aric, Dr. "The Impact Of Screen Media On Children: A Eurovision For Parliament." N.p.: Dr. Aric Sigman, 2010. 89-121. Print. This chapter is written by Dr. Aric Sigman, he writes how screen media has now become a medical issue to children. He mentions the family impact and how the interactions were different from when screen media was not in use. I decided to use this because I in my research paper I explain how screen media have impacted the interaction between family members. I also wrote the health implications in children because screen medias have also impacted children health and their social skills.

Peer-reviewed:

Allen, Rebekah, and Jason Scofield. "Word Learning from Videos: More Evidence from 2‐year‐olds." Infant and Child Development 19.6 (2010): 649-60. Print. This article is a study of whether a screen media can actually help children learn words and be able to use them properly while speaking to someone. I chose this article because I wanted my readers to read about whether screen media is a positive influence to children or not. This article did helped view the positive side of screen medias and how children are able to learn a few words from screen media but it all depends on the king of production.

Eron, Leonard D., Rowell Huesmann, Patrick Brice, Paulette Fischer, and Rebecca Mermelstein. "Age Trends in the Development of Agression, Sex Tying and Related Television Habits." Development Psychology 19.1 (1983): 71-77. Print.-

Hopf, Werner H., Gunter L. Huber, and Rudolf H. Weib. "Media Violence and Youth Violence: A 2-year Longitudinal Study." Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications 20.3 (2008): 76-96. Print.

Miller, Laura E., Adam Grabell, Alvin Thomas, Eric Bermann, and Sandra A. Graham-Bermann. "The Associations Between Community Violence, Television Violence, Intimate Partner Violence, Parent–Child Aggression, and Aggression in Sibling Relationships of a Sample of Preschoolers." Psychology of Violence 2.2 (2012): 165-78. Print.

This Journal article is a study of the short and long term effects of children who are exposed to violence both from watching television and the kind of community they live in. Therefore, this study was made to show the different kinds of violence children are seeing and how this influences aggressive behavior. I decided to use this Journal because my research paper is about children's aggression behavior outcomes from media screen and how this can affect them later in the future. This is proving the Television is one of the types of aggressive behavior on children.

Singer, Jerome L., and Dorothy G. Singer. "Psychologists Look at Television: Cognitive, Developmental,      Personality, and Social Policy Implications." American Psychologist 38.7 (1983): 826-34. Print. This article explains more on each kind of screen media and how does it affect their cognitive and skills and interaction with their families. I chose this article because in my research paper I talk about how screen media affects children's cognitive skills and how does it develop aggressive behavior. But this article nor did it talk about brain development they talked about the difference of each screen and how each screen media can influence children's behavior.

Other:

Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. CCFC. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 May 2015.

"Impact of Media Use on Children and Youth." Paediatrics & Child Health. Pulsus Group Inc, June 2003. Web. 17 May 2015.

Lillard, A. S., and J. Peterson. "The Immediate Impact of Different Types of Television on Young Children's Executive Function." Pediatrics 128.4 (2011): 644-49. Print. This article talks about the difference between a fast paced program and educational programs. Each program has it's benefits and how these two programs are impacting children's executive function. I chose this article because it helped me prove my statement of screen media being a bad influence on children. By proving my statement I mentioned how content is important and the different types of programs that children's behavior and cognitive skills get influenced.

Wilson, Barbara J. "Media and Children's Aggression, Fear, and Altruism." The Future of Children 18.1 (2008): 87-118. Print. This article is about how media screens effect children social and emotional development. Author Wilson does the study of how children learn emotions through TV. AS children learn emotions through TV they understand the feelings of people around them, they show empathy. I chose this article because I wanted to research what leads to aggressive behavior and and what were the outcome. Since emotions comes first then aggressive and so on i wanted to explain more on the development of the aggressive behavior