Impact of Media on Contemporary Childhood: Literature Review

This literature review examines the impact of media on contemporary childhood, focusing on studies by Donahoo (2007), Herodotou (2018), Gelman et al. (2018), Rosen et al. (2014), and Narasimhamurthy (2014). The review highlights the pervasive influence of television, video games, and digital media on children's psychosocial development, behavior, health, and learning. Key findings include the negative impacts of violent content, excessive screen time on physical activity, reading habits, and potential issues in social skills and moral judgment. The review emphasizes the importance of parental guidance on age-appropriate media usage and discusses the potential for media to affect sleep quality and cognitive development, concluding that over-watching television can be harmful to a child's overall health and development.

Running head: CONTEMPORARY CHILDHOOD
Contemporary Childhood
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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Introduction
One of the significant changes in the social environment of 21st century has long been
the saturation of the culture and the daily lives by means of media. The life of modern adults
is surrounded by technology and so is the life of their children. Sadly, the consequences of a
particular element of the electronic mass media have a specifically detrimental impact on the
well-being of children. Influence of media such as news on the psychosocial development of
the young children is profound. Therefore, it is very important for the physicians to discuss
about the exposure of children to media with parents and to provide them with proper
guidance on the age-appropriate usage of all types of media including television, video
games, internet, radio and music. This paper shall elaborate on presenting a critical research
review on the given group literature review by Donahoo (2007), on the topic revolving
around contemporary childhood. The chosen topic for this purpose is the impact of media on
the development and learning of children, young children and adults.
Discussion
Television plays an important role in the everyday lives of children. Near about all the
Australian families have at least one television set and majority of them own at least three.
Also, according to (), about two-thirds of children belonging from the age range of six and
under watch television every day for about two hours on an average. However, it is to
mention that the impact of television does not end when the favourite show of the child is
over. Even when children are involves in other activities like playing alone or spending time
with his parents, there is possibly to be a television on nearby. A large range of researches
including that of Donahoo (2007) shows that television can have negative impact on the
behaviour, health and achievement of the children. The main purpose of the study by him was
to outline how media have started to promote itself during a child’s prime-time viewing hour

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with dramatic announcements and head pop-ups to announce that they will soon tell viewers
more about accidents, murders and wars and how this issue has affected children and young
people as well as adults. The key questions that have been identified in this article is- how
television triggers violent behaviours among children?
Other researchers like Herodotou (2018) have found that what children are watching
is equally important to as how much they are watching. The main purpose of the article
provided by him is to assess the impacts of touch screen devices on the learning and
development of young children. The key question of article is how media impacts the
learning and development of young children. He has also found that the usage of media
negatively influence the growth and development of young children and can affect the way
these children process information. As per the study, two-thirds of all the television
programming contains violence. This results in children becoming more aggressive, fearful
and insensitive to the sufferings of other people. Hence, it reveals that violence facilitates and
triggers violent activities and behaviours in the children.
Similarly, study by Gelman et al. (2018) too has revealed that new technology does
pose new moral issues for the children. The moral judgment of the digital tracking at different
age level has significant implications for the way concepts of digital privacy develop and for
the digital security of children. The article surrounds around the key question- How media is
posing new moral issues for children? The moral judgment of the digital tracking at different
age level has significant implications for the way concepts of digital privacy develop and for
the digital security of children. Children often face relationship and social skills issues with
excessive usage of media technology. With the same, excessive television watching could be
harmful for the health of children. The more they watch television, the less physical they are.
The modern children spend majority of their time with their gadgets, watching television and
this is why, they do very small to no exercise. This is extremely bad for their mental and

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physical health as it can slow down their overall development. The study also reveals that
television watching can discourage and replace the reading habit of children as reading calls
for much more thinking compared to television. Reading fosters the healthy brain
development of children. The children from the families that have television on a lot spend
very less time in reading and being read to and also, they are less likely to be able to read.
Talking, singing, reading, listening music and playing are far more important to the
development of children than any television show.
Rosen et al. (2014) in their study “The influence of young children's use of
technology on their learning” have also focused on exploring the impact of media and
technology among children, preteens and teenagers. The key question in this article resolves
around how media and technology is influencing the well-being of children, preteens and
teenagers. They have found that the intensity of the impact differs in between teenagers,
children and preteens. They have also conducted an experiment with 1030 parents who were
asked to complete an online and anonymous survey regarding their own and their children’s
behaviors. The measures have included daily consumption of food, daily usage of technology
and daily exercise. This paper has used hypothesis testing methodology that has helped in
making interferences about the participant parameter. The study by them has suggested that
media does appear to have an independent impact on the health of young children. The more
they spend time watching television, the less physical they are. Also, extreme television
watching might result in kids becoming dyslexic and this can cause their brains to not grasp
the things quickly enough like the other normal children.
Furthermore, the study by Narasimhamurthy (2014) has focused on exploring the
negative impact of television content on the mind-set of young children. The unapproved
news and stories that children watch in their shows can change their mind-set and can
increase the level of violence among them. Also, the children who spend more time watching

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television spend less time interacting with their family members. With the same, it has also
been found that excessive television watching results in poor grades, sleeping problems,
behavioural problems and other risky behaviours among the children. There is a significant
associated in between the screen based media device access and sleep quality and quantity of
human beings. Moreover, it is also to mention in this context that in support of that of what
Donahoo (2007) have claimed, () too have opined that when children see their favourite
characters in television smoking, drinking or are involved in any sexual situations or risky
behaviours get influenced by it and tend to do the same in their life. Influence of media such
as news on the psychosocial development of the young children is profound. Therefore, it is
very important for the physicians to discuss about the exposure of children to media with
parents and to provide them with proper guidance on the age-appropriate usage of all types of
media including television, video games, internet, radio and music.
Conclusion
Early years are very crucial in the development of a child. From the above analysis it
can be concluded that over-watching television or screen device can be harmful to the overall
health of children. The more they spend time watching television, the less physical activities
they do. The modern children spend majority of their time with their gadgets and watching
television and therefore, they do very small to no exercise. This is extremely bad for their
mental and physical health as it can slow down their overall development. Media is
significantly changing the way modern children are socialising and interacting with others.
This has huge impacts on their emotional and mental well-being. With the same, it is also to
conclude after analysing the four studies that extreme usage of technology might result in
kids becoming dyslexic and this can cause their brains to not grasp the things quickly enough
like the other normal children. The main strength of these articles is that all these articles are
systematic with clear methodologies and structure that allows the readers to understand the

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link and assess the relevancy of the results declared and there is no evidence of ethical
considerations in any of the articles.

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References:
Donahoo.D 2007, idolising children, chapter 6, ‘Sydney university of NSW Press’, Page: 155
– 156, viewed on 22nd January 2020.
Gelman, S.A., Martinez, M., Davidson, N.S. and Noles, N.S., 2018. Developing digital
privacy: Children's moral judgments concerning mobile GPS devices. Child
development, 89(1), pp.17-26.
Herodotou, C., 2018. Young children and tablets: A systematic review of effects on learning
and development. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 34(1), pp.1-9.
Narasimhamurthy, N., 2014. Television Advertisement and its Impact on Attitudes,
Behaviors of Children-A study. International Journal of interdisciplinary and
multidisciplinary Studies, 1(10), pp.14-22.
Rosen, L.D., Lim, A.F., Felt, J., Carrier, L.M., Cheever, N.A., Lara-Ruiz, J.M., Mendoza, J.S.
and Rokkum, J., 2014. Media and technology use predicts ill-being among children, preteens
and teenagers independent of the negative health impacts of exercise and eating
habits. Computers in human behavior, 35, pp.364-375.