Children in the grip of television
- Publication: Daily Express
- Date: 1982-12-01
- Author: Ruth Inglis
- Page: 13
- Language: English
A PARENTS' GUIDE
WHEN your young children watch TV, are they in the grip of the lock-in" phenomenon.
This somewhat scarey phrase- comes from America in the latest study of the effects of television on children*.
After watching children watch television for hundreds of hours, a group of U.S. experts reported that "children between one and five years of age tend to lock-in to what they are watching."
British children watch 23, hours of TV a week on average, 4 1/2 more than their parents. This week Oxford Polytechnic don Cedric Cullingsford says that older children, in particular, take to adult shows of violence and adventure after getting bored with shows tailor-made for them.
The under-10s tend to "lock-in" to what they're allowed to look at before bedtime. They're not fussy and tend, to remain fixed.
How much are they actually learning in this trance?
The answer is unexpected. They do not absorb as much knowledge or information as their transfixed appearance might suggest.
Trouble
"Young children retain surprisingly little information that is essential or central to the presented plot," the authors of the recent report, poetically called "The Early Window," tell us.
The main trouble lies in small children's failure to pick up the pointers beamed at them. For instance, when a camera zooms in on a subject --a house, a site, or a face, the young child will miss the fact that this person or-place is meant-to play a large part in the story.
Older -children are far more likely to guess the significance of this visual signposting.
Parents should applaud this gradual dawning of comprehension. With the 10s and 11s, understanding can mean a loss of interest in the tube. The older child begins to use TV as a backdrop for other activities — reading, talking to friends on the telephone, playing cards. One researcher calls this "the yawning age."
The under-l0s are not so sophisticated. Their inability to be blase about television is in part the reason why they are held in its thrall. Fantasy and reality are blurred around the edges for them.
I am sure this is one of the reasons my son used to be so riveted by "Dr Who." He was particularly disturbed by one episode starring a monster who looked like a noodle gone berserk.
A chum of his, reassuring, him, said : "He's just a bloke with macaroni all over him." I believe parents should be around to be similarly comforting. Unfortunately, too few of them are. Children might love being frightened and looking at violence but there is firm evidence that it does them no good.
Parental inertia, understandable as it is at times, is destructive to a child's developing intellect. Experts have referred to that "hangover look" of the child who watches unlimited television.
Part of the reason for this attitude on the adult's part is that it is very convenient to use the set as an electronic babysitter. The flamboyant American architect Buckminster Fuller has called the TV set the child's third parent.
Fortunately some good shows are listed as favourite "baby minders" among mothers— "The Muppet Show," "Blue Peter" and such serials as "Black Beauty" for example.
Television for children has some positive attributes, unquestionably. Charitable feelings and altruism are open the sensitive emotions tapped in children. Children flood the TV companies with sympathetic letters when the poor or the handicapped are screened, as the "Blue Peter" producers would attest.
Tense
Television is also a great relaxation for them after school when they are often, strung up and tense.
As Glen Smith, managing director of the Children's Research Unit puts it: "A typical use of TV is in its 'winding-down' capacity and an hour or so of this cannot be a bad thingfor children.
"But television has to be rationed. Watching it is very passive. It's best watching with a parent so the child can get some dialogue going."
As a third parent, TV just won't do without some adult feedback.
- "The Early Window: Effects of Television on Children and Youth," by Robert Liebert, Joyce Sprafkin, and Emily Davidson. Pergamon Press, £12.50 hardcover, flexicover £4.95
Dos
- ALWAYS find out what kind of programme or series your child is watching.
- SIT and watch the programme with your child, even if only for 20 minutes. Children need adult feedback.
- LIMIT your child's viewing time. Roughly, 90 minutes on school days and three hours at weekends. This is generous; you may feel like restricting it further. But don't let the viewing stretch endlessly on.
DON'Ts
- DON'T indulge your child in a set of his or her own. They can become-punch-drunk with viewing.
- TRY not to rely on the set as a babysitter. Children quickly twig that their parents want to be left alone and the set then becomes an object of potential blackmail.
- REMEMBER the 9 o'clock viewing watershed. Shows after this time can be packed with unsavoury violence. Pack your child off to bed before this. Or turn off the set.
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- APA 6th ed.: Inglis, Ruth (1982-12-01). Children in the grip of television. Daily Express p. 13.
- MLA 7th ed.: Inglis, Ruth. "Children in the grip of television." Daily Express [add city] 1982-12-01, 13. Print.
- Chicago 15th ed.: Inglis, Ruth. "Children in the grip of television." Daily Express, edition, sec., 1982-12-01
- Turabian: Inglis, Ruth. "Children in the grip of television." Daily Express, 1982-12-01, section, 13 edition.
- Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=Children in the grip of television | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Children_in_the_grip_of_television | work=Daily Express | pages=13 | date=1982-12-01 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=25 March 2025 }}</ref>
- Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=Children in the grip of television | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Children_in_the_grip_of_television | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=25 March 2025}}</ref>
