Reference: Author Jeffrey Jensen Arnette, Lene Jensen<\/p>\n
Book \u2013 Human Development <\/p>\n
A Cultural Approach<\/p>\n
Media Use in Early Childhood LO 6.21 <\/p>\n
Identify the rates and consequences of media use in early childhood. <\/p>\n
Early childhood is a period when children\u2019s media world expands greatly, especially in developed countries. Many types of media use increase from toddlerhood to early childhood. Do you remember how old you were when you first started to watch TV? How about using a computer? Or playing a game on a handheld device? <\/p>\n
Total daily time devoted to media use is about 3\u00bd hours for American children ages 2\u20138 (Common Sense Media, 2017). The major types of media used in early childhood are television, electronic games, and recorded music. <\/p>\n
The Negative Impacts of Television use: Violence and Advertising Television is popular with people all over the world, including young children. In the United States, children ages 2\u20138 average about two hours a day viewing TV, DVDs, and videos (Common Sense Media, 2017). The most popular shows among young children are the ones made especially for them, such as cartoons and educational shows like Sesame Street (Blumberg & Fisch, 2013; Rideout, 2013). <\/p>\n
Although television is embraced everywhere for its entertainment value, many people have concerns about the effects of television, especially on children and especially with respect to violence. Content analyses have found that children\u2019s programs are even more violent than programs for adults. One study found that two-thirds of all children\u2019s programs contained violence, and about half the violence took place in cartoons (Aikat, 2007). Violence was portrayed as funny about two-thirds of the time, and in most cases the victims were not shown experiencing pain and the perpetrator of the violence was not punished. <\/p>\n
What are the effects of witnessing so much TV violence on young children\u2019s development? More than 5 decades of research, including more than 300 studies using a variety of methods, has led to a strong consensus among scholars that watching TV violence increases children\u2019s aggression (Bushman et al., 2015). The more aggressive children are, the more they like to watch TV violence, but TV violence inspires aggressive thoughts and behavior even in children who are not usually aggressive. Experimental studies indicate that causation is involved, not just correlation. For example, in one early study, children in a preschool were randomly assigned to two groups (Steur et al., 1971). Over 11 days, one group watched violent cartoons, whereas the other group saw the same cartoons but with the violence removed. During playground observations following this 11-day experiment, children who had seen the violent cartoons were more likely than children in the nonviolent cartoon group to kick and hit their peers. <\/p>\n
Young children ages 3\u20136 are believed to be especially vulnerable to the effects of TV violence (Bushman & Chandler, 2007; Coyne et al., 2017). They are more likely than younger or older children to model their behavior after the behavior of others, including TV characters. Also, they are less likely than older children to have a clear understanding of the boundary between fantasy and reality, and so more likely to believe that what they witness on TV is real. <\/p>\n
Another important effect of TV watching in early childhood concerns advertising. In the United States, the average child sees about 40,000 TV commercials each year, mostly for toys, cereal, candy, and fast food (Scheibe, 2007). Young children are especially susceptible to advertising, as they are less aware of advertising intent than older children are (Dixon et al., 2017). Most do not perceive a distinction between a program and an advertisement until about age 5 (Jennings, 2007). The more TV young children watch, the more they attempt to influence their parents to buy the advertised products (Valkenburg & Buijzen, 2007). Because most of the products children see advertised are unhealthy foods, concern has grown that TV advertising is one influence behind the growing international epidemic of obesity in children (Bergstrom, 2007; Ferguson & Iturbide, 2015).<\/p>\n
The Beneficial Effects of Educational Television <\/p>\n
TV has also been found to have some beneficial effects on young children. Educational programs have been developed that are highly popular among young children. Perhaps most notable is the Sesame Street program, which is broadcast in 150 countries worldwide (SesameWorkshop.org, 2017; Truglio, 2007). The content of the program is based on knowledge from developmental psychology of what will be most appealing to young children and most effective at teaching them the academic skills that will prepare them for school (Bergstrom, 2007; Fisch, 2014). Content is adapted to the culture in which the program is shown, for example addressing the stigma of AIDS in South Africa and promoting cross-cultural respect and understanding among children in the Middle East (Fisch et al., 2010; Truglio, 2007). <\/p>\n
Studies of the viewing of Sesame Street and other educational programs have shown impressive positive effects on young children\u2019s development. In one study, viewing Sesame Street at ages 2 and 3 predicted higher scores at age 5 on tests of language development and math skills, even controlling for parents\u2019 education and income (Scantlin, 2007). In another longitudinal study, children who viewed Sesame Street at age 5 had higher grades in English, math, and science at ages 15 and 19 than children in the comparison group (Anderson et al., 2001). Studies of Sesame Street and other educational programs have shown the programs to have other positive effects as well, such as promoting imaginative play and cooperation (Bergstrom, 2007; Fisch, 2014; Scantlin, 2007). <\/p>\n
Electronic Games and Music <\/p>\n
Although the focus of most media research concerning young children has been on television, other media are also important in their lives, notably electronic games and recorded music. Total time playing electronic games among American children averages 21 minutes a day at ages 2 to 4, doubling to 42 minutes a day by ages 5 to 8 (Common Sense Media, 2017). Boys play electronic games more than girls do, overall, and the kinds of games they prefer differ, with boys preferring fighting and sports games and girls preferring adventure and learning games (Kubisch, 2007). These gender differences endure through childhood and adolescence. <\/p>\n
Listening to recorded music is also part of the daily media diet of most children in developed countries. Over half of American parents of young children report singing to or playing music for them each day (Kinnally, 2007). On average, children ages 2\u20138 listen to music for about 16 minutes per day (Common Sense Media, 2017). Children ages 3\u20135 listen mostly to children\u2019s songs, but by age 6 children pay more attention to popular music and start to recognize and prefer the latest \u201chit songs\u201d of the day.<\/p>\n
Music evokes a positive response even from infants, but early childhood is an especially important time for the development of responses to music (Kinnally, 2007). It is during early childhood that children first connect musical sounds with specific emotions, for example recognizing songs in major keys as happy and songs in minor keys as sad. By age 5, children show distinct preferences for music that is harmonious rather than dissonant and has a steady rather than erratic beat. By this age, music also has a social side. Four- and five-year-old children prefer peers who know the same songs as they do (Soley & Spelke, 2016).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reference: Author Jeffrey Jensen Arnette, Lene Jensen Book \u2013 Human Development A Cultural Approach Media Use in Early Childhood LO 6.21 Identify the rates and consequences of media use in early childhood. Early childhood is a period when children\u2019s media world expands greatly, especially in developed countries. Many types of media use increase from toddlerhood […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10],"class_list":["post-93943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-paper-writing","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93943\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersspot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}