How TV screen affects life

TVs, like many other types of screens, are all around us. They entertain and at times drain your energy. Here is a series of short annotated articles on how to balance your life and yourself, vis-à-vis Television, and at times other types of entertainment on the screens.

Avoiding Television is almost inevitable for most people as they stay tuned for hours. That includes virtually every family member from the kids to the grandparents. It has its own ups and downs. Let’s continue with the children in part six of the series, as our next generation is what we all take utmost care about, even more than what we do for ourselves.

In the previous part, you read about some of the pros and cons of watching TV for your kids. Here are more.

Kids who tend to watch TV beyond normal (we will discuss how much is normal later) are more often than not overweight.

They often eat a snack (chances are high that they eat junk food, rather than something healthy) as they watch the small screen. In the meantime, they are influenced by the commercials that primarily promote a certain kind of unhealthy food for them to eat.

This is while they are not physically active (i.e. playing, jumping, running, etc.) which piles calories up in their body and lowers their metabolism; hence, little calorie is burnt compared to what they naturally have to.

A recent study has confirmed that even merely one hour of watching TV would be linked to obesity in kids.

So, let’s see what the bottom line is. Experts suggest that you do not allow your child under two to watch TV at all (including videos, etc.). As such children are actively involved in the process of developing their brain by watching TV, they could be stopped from a proper development in terms of playing, interacting and/or exploring things in the group of their peers.

In other words, if you want your children under two to continue developing their cognitive, physical skills, as well as emotional and social growth, do not let them watch TV at all.

For kids above two, still the TV time should be restricted to one to two hours daily.

Do not forget to consider the alternative activities, such as outdoor play or intelligent talk (surely for those who can talk). But if your alternative is to have them sit around idly, then letting your child to watch TV might be a better option, as they might get bored or could start a fight or conflict in such a case.

Actually, for every child, their first two-year is considered a critical period concerning the development of their brains. They can interact, explore, play with peers, and they will engage in active learning via manipulating the objects in the surrounding.

All those benefits could simply be affected by the time that TV steals away from your kid. It is better to replace that time for kids under two with activities that support your child’s development by helping them acquire skills much needed for intellectual, social and emotional growth.

Imagine that children are playing right now. They are actively learning about the way the world around them works.

The kids will be actively learning via experimenting with how things are and reasoning about how they happen. During their interactions with others, they are meeting their emotional benchmarks. It is better to keep your kid of the above age range away from TV which will inhibit your child from performing those activities.

There will be more on screens and children in the future parts of this series of articles.

MF/MG