Source: mensnewsdaily
Monday, September 28, 2009
By Amy Alkon
Have Kids, Then Plant Them In Front Of The TV
Americans, and American children, watch vastly more TV than adults and kids in other countries. Just look at the chart at the link -- the difference is pretty scary. It seems parents these days overprotect kids in every area, and then in this area, it's anything goes. Jeff Jacoby writes in the Boston Globe:
Just look at the dazed and vacant expression on the face of a youngster watching TV. Most parents would be calling 911 if their child drank something that caused such a reaction. Why doesn't the zoned-out oblivion induced by TV cause parents to panic? Is it because they're hooked on it too?
"Television Addiction Is No Mere Metaphor,'' reported Scientific American a few years back, and the identity of the world's foremost TV junkies is no mystery. It's us. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, American households in 2007 watched an average of 8.2 hours of television per day, nearly twice as much as anyone else. And we are awash in television outside the home as well. In gyms, bars, and airport terminals, of course, but increasingly even in public elevators, taxicabs, and gas stations. Many airlines now provide live satellite TV on individual seatback television screens.
It's bad enough that American adults watch so much TV. That so many kids wallow in it veers on child abuse. Some parents speak confidently of "educational'' television, an oxymoron on the order of "diet ice cream'' and "congressional wisdom.'' Children don't become educated from watching TV, and the more TV they watch, the less educated they usually end up.
He notes "countless studies" that document how television watching is linked to negative outcomes in school, even the likelihood that kids won't go to college.
I wasn't allowed to watch TV as a child, save for Disney on Sunday and McMillan and Wife while my dad watched afterward if I stayed at the table and nobody shooed me away. I was also taken to the library all the time. I'd bring home a laundry basket full of books, and spent most of my childhood reading. I think it's why I'm a writer today.
What's with all this TV watching -- and by parents who'd otherwise be described as "helicopter"? Parents now are all hysteria and no discipline?
Oh, and for the record, I hate-hate-hate TVs in restaurants and bars. There's somebody sitting next to you. Talk to them. They might have something interesting to tell you. If you only meet boring people, go to a better bar.
