The Detrimental Effects of Television on Children's Minds

This essay, titled "Television Is a Killing Machine for Tender Minds," explores the detrimental effects of television on children's cognitive and emotional development. Drawing inspiration from Roald Dahl's perspective, the essay employs rhetorical strategies like ethos, pathos, and logos to persuade the audience of television's negative influence. The author argues that excessive television viewing can lead to a disconnect between parents and children, restrict children's imaginative capabilities, and expose them to unethical content. The essay analyzes the persuasive techniques used in television to affect children, ultimately concluding that television possesses a harmful power that can be considered a "killing machine" for young minds. The essay references several sources to support its claims, providing a comprehensive analysis of the subject.

Running head: TELEVISION IS A KILLING MACHINE FOR TENDER MINDS
TELEVISION IS A KILLING MACHINE FOR TENDER MINDS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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TELEVISION IS A KILLING MACHINE FOR TENDER MINDS
Introduction
Roald Dahl in his famous poem literally wants the guardians to keep their children
away from the idiot box, namely television as “IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!/IT
KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!/IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!/IT
MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND” (Walsh, 2017). The invention of television
must have been an addition of golden feather to the hat of scientific discovery yet it has
several drawbacks that can severely harm the children without their knowledge. The paper
seeks to persuade why television has multiple adverse effects on the minds of children
through analyzing it from ethos, logos and pathos of the topic (Robinson, 2018). Therefore,
the essay persuades to establish television to be a killing machine for tender minds.
Strategy of ethos
As far as the spectrum of ethos is concerned, it has to be understood that the television
channels contain so many things that are not directly prescribed or recommended to the
children. The modern generation along with the advancement in every field has successfully
separated people from each other. People nowadays are so busy that the parents do not have
time for their children. Therefore, they make the children sit in front of the television in order
to keep them busy and accompanied by at least something. However, the unavoidable
circumstance that the parents forget is that certain advertisements have filthy contents that are
highly effective on the minds of the children. Certain movies that portray strange actions
might attract the attention of the children however that are extremely dangerous because the
children tend to imitate them (Singer, 2018). While imitating the actions they are mostly hurt
and face some horrible accidents.
Advertising ethics are not always maintained while making different advertisements
therefore it contains every element ignoring the fact that children will view it as well. Certain

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TELEVISION IS A KILLING MACHINE FOR TENDER MINDS
advertisements that have adult content cannot be filtered before being consumed by the
children (Kaziaj, 2016). That is somehow indicative of leading the children to an unethical pit
of existence. Children mostly prefer watching animated cartoons and fantasy stories on
television. However, these also contain different elements that are not only strange and
unscientific but also very vague and limited. Therefore, the children are thrown into an
amoral world of television that does not even exist on the realistic plane. The brutal and
certain unethical content of the advertisement are so captivating that the children tend to grow
like the way they have been offered by the advertisements.
Strategy for pathos
Analyzing the emotional aspects of a specific topic is indicative of scrutinizing
pathos. When the television and its effects are concerned the only emotional factor that truly
should bother all the parents out there is the building of a distance between the children and
the parents (Kaur & Bhoday, 2017). As it is mentioned before, that the parents are out of time
so they have to keep their kids engaged into something. However, in this process, the parents
cannot monitor the factors of what the children want and what is favorable for them. This
does not only create a physical distance between the parents and the children due to lack of
time spent together but also hinders the mental bonding with each other. Once the distance is
created between the children and the parents, the dependence on television from both the
ends starts increasing. It is important to build up a good connection between them but what
happens is something opposite (OZGEN & TOKER, 2019). The parents rely on the television
set so that they can finish their works on time while the children depend more on the
characters of the television and the voices that happen to exist inside television.
As a result, the children seem to confuse between the real world and the virtual world.
This does not only impair their exposure to emotional emancipation but they do not grow

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TELEVISION IS A KILLING MACHINE FOR TENDER MINDS
much realistic because of over dependence of fictitious world. Their emotional growth and
expression seem to be different than people who are more comfortable with books. Children
with the affection towards books can express themselves better because their emotional
growth is normal as expected. However, some exhibition of advertisements, movies, and
cartoons adversely affect the children making it even more difficult for their emotional
development (Schober & Olson, 2018). They are either traumatized or scarred for the rest of
their lives.
Strategy for logos
The logic that makes it clear that television is not really a good friend of children is
very evident because the children are affected inversely with the elements that are exhibited
in television in most of the times. It is true that there are some brilliant concepts in certain
shows but the number of sensible shows is limited. In most of the cases, it has been observed
that the children refuse to watch things that are informative rather they prefer to indulge into
stupid and things that make no absolute sense. As Roald Dahl pointed out in his poem that the
minds of the children become as soft as cheese, they cannot think beyond what has already
been presented. Slowly their imagination withers away because they do not get the
opportunity to perceive things rather they have to directly watch it. It not only cripples the
idea of provocation of thoughts in them but also restricts their vision (Kumar, Kumari &
Kathpalia, 2018).
The children become robotic bereft of emotional depth and tend to do things that are
mostly insensitive. The insensitivity is generated from the very core content of television.
The children are mostly lost and are detached from the reality. That is indicative of a
problematic future where their rationality will be reduced to invisibility and that do not seem
to be good idea.

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TELEVISION IS A KILLING MACHINE FOR TENDER MINDS
Conclusion
Therefore it can be understood from the above discussion that analyzing the rhetorical
elements with ethos, pathos and logos of the selected persuasive essay Roald Dahl seems to
be right about his comment on television. The essay comes up with the result that television
makes the children watch things that they should not watch affecting their future, creating a
distance between the parents and the tender minds and restricting the imaginative power of
the children. Therefore it can be concluded that television has this monstrous power of
becoming a killing machine.

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TELEVISION IS A KILLING MACHINE FOR TENDER MINDS
Reference
Kaur, H., & Bhoday, H. S. (2017). Changing adolescent sleep patterns: factors affecting them and the
related problems. J Assoc Physicians India, 65(3), 73-77.
Kaziaj, E. (2016). “The adult gaze”: exploring the representation of children in television news in
Albania. Journal of Children and Media, 10(4), 426-442.
Kumar, V., Kumari, V., & Kathpalia, J. (2018). Children's television viewing: A sociological
study. International Journal of Education and Management Studies, 8(4), 443-445.
OZGEN, I., & TOKER, H. (2019). A Content Analysis of Appeals in Food and Beverage TV
Commercials. Journal of Media Research, 12(2).
Robinson, P. G. (2018). Logos, Ethos and Pathos: Whither academia and public health in a
post-truth world?.
Schober, A., & Olson, D. (Eds.). (2018). Children, Youth, and American Television.
Routledge.
Singer, N., 2018. The Effect of Watching Violence and Armed Conflicts (War Media
Coverage) on Television on the Emotional State of Children: Study on Some
Refugee Families. American International Journal of Social Science, 7(4).
Walsh, D. (2017). Reminiscing Our Heritage: The 70s to the Millennium. Routledge.