▶ Your Answer :
Todays, many television programs which target young children are increasing produced by broadcasters, and some parents encourage their children to watch these television shows. Although there are some reasons to justify this trend, I think parents should be very careful when their children watch these television shows.
The parents who push their children to watch television argue that television has educational functions. They mention that by stimulating multiple senses such as sights and audios, television highly engage children to learn new information such as alphabets and numbers. They also claim that television inspires children’s creativity and makes them think differently and develop creative mind because stories in television are very interesting and show good cultural contents, mixed of reality and imagination.
However, their arguments have serious flaws because television allows only one-sided flow information. Although it is true that some television programs teach toddlers alphabets and numbers, most of other information in television is detrimental to children since it promotes imbalanced views and hinders them to develop their own thoughts. For example, according to the survey conducted by Korea Broadcast System, more than half of children who watched television at least two hours a day showed serious gender stereotype, affected by the gender role the televisions depicted. Also it revealed that most toddlers who watched television regularly sketched similar mermaid princesses when they were asked to draw something about ocean world.
In conclusion, educational role of television is very limited because television delivers information in only one-sided flow. Therefore, I firmly believe that parents should not encourage their young children to watch television in order to protect children’s thought and creativity from the impact of television. |