TV Influence

Nowadays we have to be aware of how television is changing our lives. Children face inappropriate content that can negatively influence their development. The truth is that big companies produce what sells. Nowadays what sells is rubbish TV, which has large audiences and entertains a lot of public. But, is this really the education we want for the people of the future? Do we want children to grow up being educated by the influence of TV? Watching TV excessively is bad for children, it leads children to unhealthiness such as downgrade mentally, having bad sight… Moreover, it is said that children who watch TV excessively are worse in academic learning. However, when TV is not watched excessively, it should be a good resource to promote education and entertain at the same time. Parents should be encouraged to promote age-appropriate educational TV into their children’s lives because good TV is a valuable tool for stimulating children’s cognitive development. However, nowadays many programs do not offer this possibility to children. It is believed by many parents that it is good for children to watch different type of TV programs so that they are aware of how the world is around them. But the problem is that children unconsciously learn what they watch on television and the more they see bad things, the more they get used to it and believe that something rude and inadequate is normal. Since television has existed, there are several advantages of watching TV, such as communication with other parts of the world, the weather forecast, sports or just entertainment. Therefore, we can find negative and positive impacts on children watching TV. Taking in account the popular impact of the nowadays communication media, and belonging to a school community as we do, we have found convenient to try to find some solutions to this problem. We want to evoke some serious consciousness on the worrying social issues that TV broadcasts cause to children and young learners. We are part of these young learners as well, and we have realized that society is being affected by rubbish TV and unconsciously this affects in a negative way. For this reason, we want society to support us in our point of view. Measures taken by the government to try to take out rubbish TV at times when children are watching it, seems to be not enough. Different measures have already been taken to improve the quality TV, but this is difficult because producers, as I have mentioned before, produce what sells. New programs and series which show culture and increase the knowledge of citizens need to be emitted. The main problem is that Rubbish TV is offered to us and supported by the producers. As it is very difficult to take this type of programs out of the market, we have decided to develop the education of the children so that they decide to keep distanced this type of programs by themselves. There is a code or rule that by its beginnings was signed by some television channels, which must emit the programs and series taking into account some established principles. The problem is that this code or rule is not being effective at all and it is difficult to avoid the problem. We want to disseminate and publicize these principles. For this reason, a product that helps parents and educators to decide which TV programs are most suitable for children and young learners has been created by us. This product is as well for teenagers who have already the age to be able to distinguish by their own the good from the bad points. To carry out our product, first of all we did some research about some of the most important TV channels in our country: TVE1, Clan TV, Disney Channel, TV3, Antena3, Telecinco… After all the research we have been able to find out the problems that nowadays TV is suffering and decide which criteria might be effectively applicable by parents, tutors or educators not to allow children and young learners to watch certain programs and as well make children conscious of all this. Having seen a wide variety of programs in many different TV channels, for different ages and in different schedules, it is evident that TV has many negative influences. Children's health, education and behavior are badly affected by watching TV. It seems that values which are important in our society such as respect, equality, freedom are not respected on TV. In many programs bad language with rude and inadequate vocabulary is used. The way many programs constantly show people’s private life is a shame. I would say the same for programs that propose and produce sexual content. Talking about sexual content we cannot forget the point of subliminal messages shown in some series made especially for children such as series of Disney Channel. Besides many times the contents of some programs are inadequate such as violence, conflictive topics, drugs, alcohol…Violence, sexual images, and profanity on TV ask for imitation because for example, violence is often produced and promoted as a fun and effective way to children. When watching TV, images which may leave them shocked and susceptible are absorbed by children. Another point is the superficiality that is shown on TV. As I have already mentioned, many programs are constantly showing people’s private life and not just people who are worthy of admiration. These are people recognizable by society, people that appear in these programs just for the money. They don’t care about important and human values and to keep the audience, they resort to unacceptable means. They just laugh at others, make stupid jokes, insult people or look down on them just to have a good laugh. We should ask ourselves if these are the people that we really want as an example and reference for children. Programs which are inadequate for children should be emitted at specific hours when children are at school or very late at night. Certain words and vocabulary should be restricted. And making public someone’s life without their permission should be forbidden as well. Producers should make sure that people who appear in their programs are a nice influence and not rude and impolite. Moreover subliminal messages should be changed and even more in films or programs made especially for children. But, What if I say that all this measures are already in this code or rule? There are many possible solutions, but they are not enough. Also, some measures that parents can take are: use program guides and TV ratings to choose appropriate programs for children, watch TV with their children whenever possible, and comment what is seen on TV. We are surprised on how much influence has television in our daily routine. That’s the reason why our product will be effective, easy and simple. People need to have access to quality TV but what is even more important is that people need to be aware of the problem and try to avoid it. Our product is useful for parents and educators as this list of the most current TV problems and let them know which are the sources their children are influenced. We have created a magazine. The objective of this magazine is to spread this alert message. It contains different articles, interviews and others. It has taken us a long time to bring this product out. Do your parents allow you to watch anything you want? Would you allow your younger siblings to watch all TV programs they like? Why? After our personal reflection we started doing some preliminary tasks and we read a text about Rubbish TV. When we realized of the problem, in groups we distributed us different channels to analyze. I analyzed Clan TV (which actually is very important because it is the one more related with children) and TVE1,. At the end we joined the ideas and started to think about how to do the product. Our objective with this product is to keep parents, educators, children and everyone who’s interested in TV to be confident and safe from all programs and shows. Also to be aware of the fact that it’s not difficult to choose the right program and that there is a variety of them on TV. We want to make them see on their own the difference between a programs which should be watched and others which not. Reality shows have increased and, yes, we can change the channel, but children are not aware this unconscious danger. So that’s why one of our proposals in this product is protecting them. We could say that nowadays, TV is changing and producers produce what makes a lot of money. However we hope that our product makes people conscious of this negative influence and thus reduce the audiences of this rubbish programs. Therefore, producers would have to leave out this kind of programs and produce what people prefer to watch. We shouldn’t forget that the viewers are children and if everyone supported this idea, things would change and the protection and education of children would be ensured. Cristina Abad