Harmful Effects of TV on Children

This essay discusses the harmful effects of television shows on young children, focusing on the negative impact of graphic images, violence, and sexual content on their cognitive, moral, and emotional development. It references Jean Piaget's theory of intellectual development, highlighting how the concrete and formal operational stages are most vulnerable to these negative influences. The essay also emphasizes how excessive TV viewing can hinder a child's learning process and moral judgment, ultimately affecting their understanding of real-life consequences.

Harmful effects of TV shows on young audiences
One can see a television in everybody’s home and many of the children in the houses can
be seen mostly in front of them which gives a great topic of debate. Some parents are
much concerned about their children mindset as they think children are more exposed to
some images on television which are misleading at times for example, excessive graphic
images, and violence shown on TV shows. Such kind of exposure to young children at a
small age can sometimes lead to a negative effect on their minds leaving behind a harsh
impression. Today many children starting from age 2 years till eighteen spend most of
their time watching TV shows which is very more than spending time on some other
activity.
The incidences which can put adverse effect on young children minds are like seeing half
naked women, flow of blood coming out from a dead body which is too scary, and many
other kissing scenes shown in TV shows nowadays. At my homes young children are not
supervised by their parents while watching television which is quite harmful for children
at that age. Basically children learn through the five sense organs and this hindrance of
television negative effects can be critical to their learning process. Since when a child
watches television he is in immobile state and only two senses that are seeing and hearing
are working and no other are in active state. Also the representation of sex on television
has drastically increased from last decades which is further influencing the attributes of
young children. This activity of sex has been increasingly being used by children at
earlier age as a fun activity.
Jean Piaget who was born in Switzerland in 1896 presented four stages in his theory of
intellectual development of a child. The four distinct stages are like:
 The sensorimotor stage from birth to age 2
 The preoperational stage from age 2 to about age 7
 The concrete operational stage from age 7 to age 11
 The formal operational stage which begins in adolescence and spans into
adulthood.
The main stage of his theory which is most influenced by the harmful effects of television
shows are the stages of concrete operational and formal operational where children are
such an age where the chances of having adverse effect of television shows on their
minds is the most. Since at these stages children start to think more logically and some
TV shows can put hindrance to their abstract and hypothetical concept of thinking.
The stages which is less effected is the sensorimotor stage from birth to age 2 since at this
stage kids are too small to understand the concepts shown on television. They generally
manipulate the objects through their sensory experiences.
The moral and emotional development of a young child is also influenced by the TV
shows since the flow of more violence shown on TV shows suspends their sense of
reality which in turn affects moral judgment made by them later. They are not able to
understand the results of real life violence like jail, death and injury.