Social Impact of Television on Youth and Children

 

Social Impact of Television on Youth and Children

Television: The Impact.

Television has had a major impact in our country for last 50 years. It  was an instrument for national integration and peace. Then as time went by it started focusing more on entertaining the audiences than to inform them. Last 18 years have been revolutionary for Television as it has become a medium of entertainment and has impacted the current teen, youth and children of the country. But how did TV  achieve to have such a major role in our country.

The children in the early 90’s saw the good old days of emergence of cable TV and last popular days of good old DD. They grew up watching serials like Mahabharat, Ramayan, Jungle Book, Shatiman etc. Now they grow up on Various reality TV shows, cartoons and soap operas. It’s a world out there alright but does it influence in a good way or a bad way.

 

Role models from TV

In the day and age of reality TV it becomes imperative that kids and youth have a clear understanding of what is really a real picture and what is TV content. But this is hard to achieve as such as we think because parents themselves are very busy nowadays to explain certain details to the kids. Thus the generation has someone like Ranbir Kapoor or Priyanka Chopra as its role model.

It becomes difficult for this generation to understand the what is good on TV and what is bad on TV as this line is really blur. This is the age of instant gratification, where everyone wants everything to happen instantly and success is measured by the time it takes to get there even if that is a short term success.  TV is such an age is very influencing medium and it’s interesting that kids have a plethora  of options to choose from.

 

 

Fashion and trends from TV

TV influences children to create their own sense of fashion. Youth want a Manchester United T-shirt as it is their favourite team. They (kids, teens and youth) pester their parents in to getting them the latest in  fashion and the newest in trends as they see it on TV.

Teen girls want to look like Hanna Montana (a popular TV icon) and thus try to either match up with her style  or they try come up with their own. This leads to peer pressure and the  economically weak kids suffer from feeling left out.

This is not a good way of creating a country that has equal opportunities for everybody. Hence it is important that while there should be no censorship on TV as it hurts the basic expression of freedom of speech, there should parental discretion and discussion on the topics which are shown on TV with taking kids into consideration.

 

A patter to choose from

Youth and children have a lot of options available with them. They can choose as to what, when or where do they want to watch any TV show. In this environment of multiple channels and limited time, families usually end up watching TV together. Also a point to be considered is that most middle class people have only one TV Set available with them. Thus many times kids end up watching adult content as mothers watch TV soaps in front of the kids who misinterpret the shows by analyzing it themselves through their limited understanding. Mothers usually just allow them to watch it as the kids generally stay quite and do not disturb her while watching her favourite soap.

Couch potatoes.

TV watching can be harmful to a person’s eyes. TV watching can be addictive and people can become couch potatoes and be lazy enough not to do anything.