Television's Impact on Youth

This assignment analyzes the multifaceted influence of television on young people. It delves into both the benefits, such as educational content and global awareness, and the drawbacks, including violence, obesity, and addiction. The paper stresses the importance of responsible media consumption and calls for proactive measures from parents, policymakers, and broadcasting organizations to mitigate negative impacts and promote a balanced approach to television viewing.

Running head: IMPACT OF TELEVISION ON YOUTH
IMPACT OF TELEVISION ON YOUTH
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IMPACT OF TELEVISION ON YOUTH
Abstract:
Television is one of the most important medium of entertainment in the present
generation. Starting from small age to that of elderly people, all prefer watching television.
However, the cohort which remains mot addicted to television is the young people. Television
has many positive impacts. It provides them with new from all over the world. They also get to
know a lot about flora and fauna all over the world. Many channels show tips of healthy living
hat makes their lives better. It also gives them time to handle their stress effectively. However
there are many negative impacts. Youths develop unhealthy habits like improper sexual habits,
violence, aggression, physical disorders like vision issues, obesity and many others. Parents
should be careful about their wards. The national broadcasting organization should also posse
proper control over the content they allow on the television. All these would help in overcoming
the impacts and give them proper lives.

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Title: Television – “necessary evil” for the youth:
In the present generation, media has a profound impact on different cohorts of
population. Most of the impacts are mainly found over children and youth. Previously, printed
word in the media through newspaper had been the main source of information as well as
entertainment for young people. In the present generation, the printed word of the media has
undergone a revolution. Media is no more restricted to prints and now has expanded to air,
television as well as internet (Greenfield, 2014). Television is the most readily available medium
of information to each and every household and has been a constant companion for young people
not only in Canada but also over the world. The thesis of this persuasive essay is (a) televisions
in the present day are impacting the lives of youth both in a positive way and in negative
way, (b) numerable factors are making them exposed to the television and also (c) the
recommendations which can be provided to parents and guardians to prevent the young
individuals of the family to get affected in a negative way.
Statistical data suggest that an average Canadian adolescent watches television for more
than 14 hours of the day. Television can be termed as “necessary evil” for such young souls. This
is said so because, television can act as a powerful teacher. The important channels like
Discovery, National Geographic, the tutorial classes for handicrafts, the classes conducted on
teaching yoga and exercises and many others can provide them with good amount of knowledge.
They can gather information and news from all over the world through the news channel and
keep themselves updated (Van Der Chaul et al., 2015).
However, it has many negative impacts as well. Many teenagers remain hooked for a
long period of time which affects their academic career and earn them poor marks. A deleterious

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effect of television is not only poor academic performance but it also makes them prone to
develop various kinds of mental and physical disorder. They harm their eyes due to long period
of watching televisions for which their vision is affected. They suffer from head ache and back
ache which further reduces their strength to complete their homework.
Another issue that has been noted is the negative impact that the entertainment industry
has on the young individuals. Many of the adolescents try to adapt the life, style, dresses,
aspects, body features and others of the celebrities. Many of the teenagers even harm themselves
while trying to imitate the looks of their celebrities. Besides, being negatively influenced by the
entertainment industry, the young people also get affected by the violence shown on television
(Frazier, 2017). Researchers are of the opinion that violence shown on television including
murders; rapes and others have negative aspects on the minds of the youth. Heavy doses of
violence on television increases aggressive behavior particularly in boys. Many other studies
have also established link of television publicity of suicides to an increased suicide risk among
young people watching the television (Sonneville et al., 2015).
Watching television also takes out a lot of their time and prevents them from getting
engaged in different co curricular activities, interesting co-curricular workshops and others. They
also do not participate in community sports. Failure of them to undertake outdoor co-curricular
activities due to longer times spent in front of television makes them physically unfit. Moreover,
the advertisement provided by different companies about fatty foods like chips, cold drinks,
calorie containing fast food, chocolates and others make them more prone to buy them (Fergusan
et al., 2014). All these lead to ill health of the young people making them suffer from obesity and
overweight issues. As they grow older, they get affected with other disorders as the result
obesity, which destroys quality lives of such young people.

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Other researchers are of the opinion that television exposes young people to different
adult sexual behaviors by exhibiting such activities look like normal behaviors. It seems to them
that such activities are casual and risk free and can be performed at any ages and without any
inhibitions (Ross er al., 2015). The sexual contents seen between unmarried couple are 24 times
found to be higher than married couple on television giving improper information to the young
individuals of the society. Therefore numerous studies have shown that adolescent’s
susceptibility to the media’s influence can alter the sexual attitudes, values and beliefs of the
youth. Another issue also noticed is the use of alcohol and smoking shown and promoted on the
national television. This affects the behaviors of the young people making them adopt it first as a
style statement and then getting addicted to it (Fergusan et al., 2015).
In order to control the negative impacts on the young people, parents have to take upon a
major responsibility to monitor the television watching habits of young people. They should try
to counsel their wards stating the negative effects that television might have on their health. They
should also encourage them to follow disciplined schedule throughout the day. The parents
should try to encourage their children to participate in sports activities and other co-curricular
activities in community workshops. The colleges and schools should also encourage them by
making them develop knowledge about how to lead healthy lifestyles by regular physical
activities. Moreover, the national broadcasting systems should take an initiative to control
advertisements which promote eating of junk food, infuse violence and aggression and others
(Laurson et al., 2015).
From the entire discussion, it becomes quite clear that television has both positive and
negative impacts on people. The positive impacts include developing knowledge on different
elements in the world, flora and fauna all over the world, healthy living, tutoring classes, cookery

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shows and many others. They also help to know different incident occurring all over the world
through news, making youths updated. However, they also have negative impacts. Youths gets
involve in violence, aggression, improper sexual habits, develop obesity, and also vision
impairment, addiction and others. All these sufferings would continue to adulthood as well if not
checked on time. Therefore, it becomes important for parents, government and national
broadcasting systems to take initiatives that would control these attributes of youth watching
television for long time and gift them proper disciplined lives.

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References:
Ferguson, C. J. (2015). Clinicians’ attitudes toward video games vary as a function of age,
gender and negative beliefs about youth: A sociology of media research
approach. Computers in Human Behavior, 52, 379-386.
Ferguson, C. J., Muñoz, M. E., Garza, A., & Galindo, M. (2014). Concurrent and prospective
analyses of peer, television and social media influences on body dissatisfaction, eating
disorder symptoms and life satisfaction in adolescent girls. Journal of youth and
adolescence, 43(1), 1-14.
Frazier, B. (2017). The Impact of TV Violence on Children and
Adolescents. Thesuccessfulparent.com. Retrieved 20 November 2017, from
http://www.thesuccessfulparent.com/categories/children-and-media/item/the-impact-of-
tv-violence-on-children-and-adolescents#.WhK709KWbIU
Greenfield, P. M. (2014). Mind and media: The effects of television, video games, and
computers. Psychology Press.
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(2015). The relationship between population-level exposure to alcohol advertising on

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