Television, one of today's indispensable mass media, has great effects on children's development. Many parents ask whether letting their children watch television is beneficial or harmful. Especially in busy working families, there is a habit of resting in front of the television when they come home from work or keeping the television on so that their children do not disturb them too much. Excessive use of these habits negatively affects children's biopsychosocial development. However, it seems a little difficult to completely remove television from our lives today, when technology use is at its peak.
In this article, “What are the benefits and harms of television for children? How do we manage the child's viewing of television programs? I will try to answer questions like: Research shows that one of the most used technological tools in countries is television. In many families, television remains on even if it is not watched at that moment.
Harms: Television does not contribute to the education of children under the age of 2. Worse, it can prevent the child from engaging in beneficial activities that can develop his or her brain, such as playing and interacting with other people. While the child learns much more from real life, he learns very little from the television screen. Television pacifies the child and removes him from creativity and activity. While it can create uniform value judgments in children, it can also develop anxiety and fears in children who are emotionally insecure. Over time, these fears negatively affect the child's entire life. Children may perceive everything they see on TV as real, and may have difficulty distinguishing between what is real and what is not. They do not know that what is happening before their eyes is a game or a performance, they think it is real. They try to fly like Superman, and may develop feelings of aggression during their primary school years, just when their personalities are forming. For these reasons, watching television for long hours during the preschool period negatively affects the child's school success, social functionality and interpersonal communication. The majority of children with speech delay live in homes where they watch television for long periods of time and where there is not much conversation among the family. those that grow in environments. The speaking skills of these children increase visibly when television is removed from their environment and they spend more time with the family.
Benefits: By connecting children to the home, it creates common interests in the family and realizes family happiness. It encourages the child to think. It expands children's interests and life areas. It develops children's aesthetic tastes. Some television programs educate the child. It can help teach many activities such as counting, teaching cooking, encouraging reading, and establishing good friendships. A study conducted at the University of Siena found that cartoons have soothing and pain-relieving effects on children. For this reason, it may be beneficial for children who are very stressed and in pain to watch some television.
Finally, how should television management be done? We do not recommend that children under the age of 2 watch television because it does not provide any benefit, on the contrary, it causes psychosocial deprivation. For older children, it would be beneficial to watch the educational programs I mentioned above, which increase the child's cultural development and broaden his horizons, at certain times of the day and for no more than an hour. For children with speech delays, it would be the most logical choice to pack and put away the television for a long time.
See you next week, stay safe…
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