TV Viewing and Children

According to the American
Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychology (AACAP), the average American child
watches between three and four hours of TV each day. This equals about nine
years of TV viewing by retirement age, and includes about 2,000,000 TV
commercials.

Many psychologists are
worried about the effect that TV watching has on children’s behaviour. There is
concern that watching a lot of TV shows, especially programmes with a violent content
can have a negative effect on children’s psychological development.

The AACAP also reports that
children who watch a lot of television violence have higher levels of violent
behaviour. Surprisingly, programmes created for children can be the most
violent type of shows, with the average of twenty-six violent acts per hour such
as hitting, compared to five per hour during adult prime time.

Psychologists believe that
TV violence affects children in three main ways. First, they become immune to
the violence they have seen, and begin to see it as a normal behaviour.
Secondly, they accept the use of violence as a way to solve problems or get
what they want. Finally, children copy the violent acts they see on TV.

Long hours of TV watching
can affect a child’s development in other ways, too. Jerome Singer, a
psychologist at Yale University, accepts that long hours of TV are “a clear
danger to children.” His research also demonstrates that children who watch the
most TV have the lowest marks in reading. Children forget about books and fall
in love with TV. Another study by Dr. Judith Owens, a paediatrician at Brown
University, suggests that children who watch a lot of TV around bedtime are
more likely not to want to go to bed, have trouble sleeping, or wake up more
often during the night.

However, a study of children
at Stanford University offers some reasons to be hopeful. The report concludes
that levels of violent behaviours in children can be reduced if parents monitor
the programmes their children see, and watch some TV shows with them. Parents
should also limit the time children watch TV each day, and refuse to let
children watch shows that contain violent scenes.
According to the text, why are the shows created for
children more dangerous compared to the ones that run during adult prime
time?                                               


. Find in the text the synonyms for the word and word
combination given below.  
a) programme
__________________

b) for example
__________________

3. Find in the text the antonyms for the words given
below.                                          4p

a) peaceful
____________________

b) to increase
_____________________\
 
4. Identify and circle the correct variant
(True/False). Justify your choice.                6p

a) Children who watch a lot
of TV do better in school.                                        True False

because______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

b) Parents should allow
children to watch TV before bedtime.                             True False       

because______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5. Give another title to the text. Write your title in
the form of a sentence.            6. Comment the phrase below in 4 lines.                                                 
 Parents should limit the
time children watch TV each day.


7. Identify the message of the text and comment
on it in 5 lines