Kids today have grown up in an era where they can't remember a time when there were no cell phones, no internet, no DVDs, and no video games. That's all they've ever known and it has become a big part of their social (or anti-social) lives. "Advertisements are selling us something else besides consumer goods...they are selling us ourselves" (McQuail 300). Media tells children that they need to have all of these things (a cell phone, video game, etc.) because they don't want to be left out.
The media shapes the way kids today grow up. "The sheer amount of time young people spend using media - an average or nearly 6 1/2 hours a day - makes it plain that the potential of media to impact virtually every aspect of young people's lives cannot be ignored" (Baran & Davis 200). As we know, sometimes parents use the TV as a babysitter, but the kids are suffering the consequences.
I read an article about the negative effects of technology on kids [see link below] that made me wonder, is today's media helping or hurting kids?
http://www.helium.com/items/1629062-the-negative-effects-of-technology-on-kids
Many people think that because of technology, today's kids' social skills are severely lacking. If they aren't watching TV, kids are texting or checking out their friends' Facebooks (because as we know, Facebook is no longer exclusively for college students). Because they are bombarded with media and technology, kids are spending less and less time having face-to-face interactions. Parents worry that kids today are lacking activity. When we were kids we used to go outside and play, but today kids are too busy playing video games inside. And when they do go outside to play, they take their cell phones with them so they can text their friends.
Media is a powerful influence on people of all ages. But do you think that kids are especially dependent on their media consumption today? Is is affecting their social skills? What activities did you do when you were a kid compared to what kids do now? Were we the same back then or do kids today have it worse?
I think kids are dependent on thier media consumption today but you can not blame them really because they are born into the technology era. Kids today cannot imagine being without their cell phone, or watching television because it is a part of their lives, this is what they've grown up with.In baran and davis it says "From the time children learn to talk, they are mesmerized by the sounds and moving images of Sesame Street" (200).
ReplyDeleteI'm sure if someone was to do a study where kids will go without all the technology we have today like it was back in the day for 2-3 weeks, a lot of people would not be able to do it. I think it is affecting kids social skills because some people are shy to begin with and mostly everyone feel more comfortable talking to other people via text, email, IM, etc..
When i was kid i would always be outside hanging on the block with my friends or either at the rec center playing sports. In my neighborhood every kid pretty much was involved in some type of sport basically to keep them out of gangs and off the streets. Most kids today are home bodies either on the compter, watching tv, playing video games. Technology is one of the main ways for kids today to be socially active. Mcquail says "we feel a need to belong, to have a socail 'place'"(301) technology is how kids find that "social place." I think it is hurting kids but I wonder what the nxt 15 years will be like for kids as technolgy continues to advance.
I think that children today are extremely dependent on the media and technology. As Leigh said, they have grown up with it---they don’t know what life is like without technology. It is always weird when one of my younger cousins knows how to use the computer, or a digital camera, or a cell phone better than I do. While it is a good tool for them to be knowledgeable on how to work all of the various technologies out there, it is also damaging to their social skills.
ReplyDeleteWhen I see my younger cousins playing, it usually consists of video games, such as on their Wii or playing guitar hero. Sometimes they will play together, but it really isn’t necessary to play with anyone else---you can play against the computer—no human interaction needed. When they want something, they whine about it to their parents, saying that so-and-so in class has it. It seems that children need the latest technologies in order to feel like they belong and fit in, as the Mcquail reading states, “We are made to feel that we can rise or fall in society through what we are able to buy…” (300).
I remember when I was younger I would spend hours and hours playing Barbie with my sister. We would make up different scenarios for our dolls---we essentially created a whole different world. I also remember riding my bike all the time as a kid and playing basketball in the driveway with my dad. Both my sister and I took dance lessons, so we would often come up with routines of our own at home and do a recital for our parents. Everything that we did required some creativity and imagination. The kids growing up now don’t need an imagination. Everything is already planned out for them. There is also very limited social interaction. Kids spend hours on the computer playing games, or hours in front of the television playing video games or watching shows.
I’m not certain if this has necessarily hurt them in terms of their social skills however. I feel as if children still get enough face-to-face interaction at school. From what I have witnessed of my younger cousins, they still have good social skills, but they are constantly on their cell phones, iPods, etc. At the same time though, I am addicted to my cell phone too, but I guess I still had the time when I was younger to enjoy being a kid. However, as the Baran and Davis readings suggest, these new technologies are turning society into an individualistic one, “Today some critics argue that newer media technologies, such as iPods, the internet, and video-enabled cell phones are “personal media” that are inherently biased toward individualism and market economies rather than toward collectivism and state control” (201).
I agree that kids today are bombarded with all different forms of media which we didn’t have when we were kids. There a video games and television programs for kids at even young ages. They grow up exposed to constant forms of media. In another one of my classes, our professor has told us to count the amount of kids we see outside playing in the yard. This was a common routine for me when I was a kid. I came home from school and played outside until it was dark. Today this is not the case. According to Baron and Davis, “Children begin watching television attentively by the age of three. Before most children start school or form close relationships with peers, they have learned the names of countless television programs and are fans of particular programs” (Baran and Davis 199-200).
ReplyDeleteAs we have discussed in class, I feel as though the media is going to hurt this generation’s social skills. With all of the technology like Facebook, AIM, Skype, Web Cam, etc. there is not going to be any need for face to face interaction which is important in life. It is so easy to call someone instead of talking face to face, and even easier to text someone rather than call them.
Personally, when I went to Europe this summer with a group of people we really couldn’t use our cell phones so when we wanted to get in contact with each other we had to walk to each others rooms or use the hotel phone. We could not just send each other a text. We were forced to be a part of the European culture.
Advertising plays a major role in the amount children are using technology. According to the McQuail reading the goal of an advertisement is to sell. Therefore, the company is going to market their product to kids to make them think they cannot live without it, as Leigh mentioned in her lead blog. With kids watching countless hours of TV and seeing these advertisements they are being immersed with the idea they need a cell phone, a lap top, and more.
Overall, the way this generation is heading is sad. What happened to the times when kids could be kids and go out and play in the yard because there was nothing else to do? With the addition of more and more technology in our society, it will continue to hurt social skills in America.
After I read this post, I was about to argue that we're giving the media too much credit. Initially, my thought process was that, even though children have access to all of these types of media, in the real world, nothing replaces social interaction. Kids do still play together, go outside, etc. They're just doing it less than they would be if it weren't for television and the Internet.
ReplyDeleteThen I thought about what I was about to argue, and I've thought about all the nights I, personally, have actually decided against going out and instead spent the night in front of my TV or computer (or both). I thought about the summer I spent entirely indoors because I was too addicted to The Sims Online to leave my room. What would I have done on these occasions if it weren't for the TV and Internet? How would I have entertained myself? Well, it's likely that I would have either read a book, gone for a walk, met up with a friend, or even just sat and talked with someone in my family if I really didn't feel like going anywhere. Every one of these alternative activities is beneficial in some way, while there's virtually nothing to gain from watching TV or spending a day in front of the computer.
One thing from the Baran and Davis reading that really struck my interest was the idea of sex roles. While Baran and Davis use this term to describe gender, I feel that it's relevant to look at both meanings of the word "sex." As we know, sexual behavior is occurring at younger and younger ages. I have younger cousins telling me that some of their sixth grade friends aren't virgins. And something funny that I remembered was that I actually got in trouble in kindergarten for talking about sex with a friend. I know for a fact that we'd learned about sex from TV. While I'm sure there are a lot of factors that play into this, I do find it peculiar that the rise in media is positively correlated to the rise in sexual behavior among children.
The Hall reading also calls to light that old-fashioned, face-to-face communication is being replaced with television, which is ALSO a form of communication. So, in a sense, allowing your child to stay in front of a TV instead of going outside is essentially allowing major corporations to talk AT your child for hours on end.
I often think about the current media climate in America and what effect it will have on our nation's developing youth. Having the Internet as an omnipresent, all-powerful force in society today might be a scarier notion than previously thought. Social interactions are obviously key in the early years of life. It's important for kids to start going to school and to begin making friends with other children of their own age. The entire point of Facebook was to put the social experience of college online, but what happens when users begin flocking to the site even prior to the development of that social experience? What I mean is, should we be letting kids use a digital forum for social interaction before they've truly been able to interact face-to-face?
ReplyDeleteOne idea I hadn't considered from the article was the idea that "thinking of something new is difficult when everything seems to have been already thought of." With technology making life easier every single day, will there be a lack of problems to solve and no inherent need for innovation? I would like to think not, but it's impossible to predict. I don't know if anyone ever expected the Internet to evolve into the force it is today. Certainly, if you were to go back in time to elementary school and tell me that a website would dominate my collegiate experience, I wouldn't have believed you. Even more recently, if you told me three years ago that Facebook would be branching out and integrating with just about any website worth its salt, I don't think I would have believed it.
When reading the article, I also thought of symbolic interactionism. The theory says that "people give meaning to symbols and that those meanings come to control people" (Baran & Davis 301). It's possible that Facebook could be introducing new symbols into the lives of these youths at an impressionable time. Every interaction on a user's news feed could be considered a symbol, and if one doesn't have face-to-face social interaction mastered, they may not understand the tone of the read message, and negatively misinterpret it.
Today, kids grow up in a generation where their lives are run by television, and their favorite characters and other forms of media. Everyone else has grown accustomed to the high consumption of media by these young children. “Before most children start school or form close relationships with peers, they have learned the names of countless television characters and are fans of particular programs. By the first day of elementary school, they are already watching nearly three hours a day. By eight years old, they are watching four full hours. By the time they finish high school, average teenagers will have spend more time in front of their television sets than they will have been engaged in any other activity except sleep” (Baran & Davis 199). These television programs play a big role in shaping the lives of these young children who are so impressionable at this age. When considering that the average child will spend more time in front of the television than anything else besides sleeping, it is apparent that the child should be monitored. Not only should the child be monitored to see if he/she is watching an appropriate program, but also, the child should be monitored for how much time they spend watching the television. Most would argue that children belong playing outside, not sitting inside watching television for their whole childhood. These children will miss out on social interaction for this extended viewership of TV and can have long lasting effects on the life of the child.
ReplyDeleteIf television wasn’t enough of an issue, another dynamic to watching television that we need to consider is that of advertising. McQuail’s reader says they are one of the most important forces in molding and their audience. “They are ubiquitous and inevitable part of everyone’s lives: even if you do not read a newspaper or watch television, the images posted over our urban surroundings are inescapable” (McQuail 299). Advertisers are great at what they do, especially when considering advertisements geared towards children. Like I had said before, the children are so impressionable and can be convinced that they ‘need’ this product.
What do you think is more dangerous for our children, the increased amount of television watched, or the fact that they are exposed to these convincing advertisements every day?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDa1Ek3LVlc
ReplyDeleteAfter I read Leigh's article, I automatically thought of this youtube video that I saw last week. The article highlights all of the direct negative effects of technology on our children,such as inactivity, lacking social skills, etc, and also the indirect effects such as obesity which can lead to more serious health issues such as diabetes or heart issues. I thought the video would fit in well here becuase not only does it involve some children, but also there is a father who consumes so much of his cell phone that he is neglecting his child who is right next to him. I think this video outlines the power of technology and the amount of influence it can have on just about anybody.
In the Baran and Davis reading, it says "media have become a primary means by which many of us experience or learn about many aspects of the world around us. Even when we dont learn about these things directly from the media, we learn about them from other people who get them from the media" (200). When you think about this fact, yes, I think the media is good for everybody and we should be learning as much as we can, but the problem is that I doubt all of these kids spending time on the computers or cell phones with internet are looking up informative things. Nowadays, these kids are growing up on Facebook and MySpace which account for many hours of their days.
In the McQuail reader, it says "All of us have a genuine need for a social being, a common culture. The mass media provide this to some extent and can (potentially) fulfil a positive function in our lives" (301). I think this statement can definitely be true, except I don't think it should apply to children. I remember everyday when I would get out of school I would go play sports with all of my friends in the neighborhood. We would grab our bikes and just go play until it was dinner time. Now kids are rushing home to plop down on the couch and play video games or watch TV, or even just sit down with their cell phones and text.
One of the major issues, I think, is that many parents are also being caught up in their blackberries and iPhones and this transfers over to the children. I'm a soccer coach in Darien, CT and I coach 3rd grade girls. Last practice I had to wait 20 minutes for a girls father to come and pick her up, and when he fially arrived he parked his car and sat in it for 5 minutes not even noticing that we were waiting for him. When I asked if he was going to come out of the car and get the girl, she replied, "oh, hes probably on his blackberry, he's addicted to it," and she smiled and walked towards the car. Sure enough, the father walked out of the car looking down at his phone. The girl was laughing when she was telling me he was addicted because she thought it was funny, but she didn't see the bigger picture that I did. Not only did he not notice that if I didn't stay, then his daughter would have been alone by herself in a park for 20 minutes, it took him 5 minutes to even notice we were even there.
I think that Leigh brings up a really interesting topic in her lead blog as we are truly in the midst of the media-savvy generation. I can remember my dad and my uncles constantly recalling stories to me of playing outside in the street until their mom screamed for them to come in for dinner. My Uncle Lou would always tell me and my cousins about his obsession for the game of basketball when he was a teenager growing up in Brooklyn. He would literally go to the city park every day after school, even would shovel these courts himself in order to play no matter the weather conditions. Thinking back to these stories I can only think to myself now, how many kids nowadays would actually shovel out their own driveway just to get in a few hours of play in on a frigid January afternoon? The answer probably is very few as the majority of this generation would much more likely play Call of Duty on their Xbox 360 instead.
ReplyDeleteI feel that there was a significant turning point in the emergence of media and television, in particular, in the lives of children and teens. Growing up my family had one main television which was in the living room and I can remember watching TV primarily with my entire family. Baran and Davis provide the alarming statistic that “fully 25 percent of American children under two years old have a television set in their bedroom” (200). I didn’t have a TV in my room until my first year of high school. I feel like there is a pretty easy solution to the problem many parents in this country have of monitoring the types of programming and movies their kids consume. Don’t put a TV in their bedroom! I couldn’t agree with Leigh more when she says that parents more and more utilize these televisions as babysitters more than anything else.
The other main point of the blog delved into the need for kids to keep up to date with the latest technologies. Basically the need to have and consume the same things that their friends at school are watching or listening to. In the McQuail text Williamson stated that “instead of being identified by what they produce, people are made to identify themselves with what they consume” (300). I feel that this is a society driven need that all people, but especially children, feel to fit in with the latest media trends. Kids younger and younger have been getting their own facebooks because all their friends are getting them. The same can be said for the latest I-phone, I-pad, I-touch, etc. In many circles you are judged not by your personality but instead by what you own and how “in the know” you are.
I think this is something that we need to embrace. Even though the all the media might not fully be a positive thing, it is here and it is not going away. I do think kids now a days forget what its like to play outside at times. I think it is up to parents to make sure that their kids have a healthy mix of media and outside/creative play time. Parents are the ones that spend their money on things like video games, i-pads, extra television channels, etc... therefore I feel that this is something we can control. I think sometimes younger parents forget that they are the adults and call the shots, and just give into their child's begging and "need" for media. While I do think that media exposure is important because it is the future and a big way of communicating and also learning, I do not feel it should run a child's life. Statics such as “fully 25 percent of American children under two years old have a television set in their bedroom” (Baran and Davis 200), is ridiculous. Kids that are two and under can not even use a remote control. I hope that these parents aren't using that television set to "babysit" their children and fill a void that they themselves as parents should be filling. The McQuail reader says it simply, "Thus, there is a space, a gap left where the speaker should be..." (301). And that statement is true.
ReplyDeleteThis is a funny topic for this week. Just this weekend I was on the Metro North into NYC where i sat and watched a little girl (totally not creepy) play with her mothers iphone as the mother got some sleep after a long day in the city. This girl could not have been over the age of 5, yet she seemed to know how to navigate her mothers device with great ease.
ReplyDeleteI was just so intrigued with this little girl, and I had got me to thinking about how crazy it is that little kids are attracted to this kind of thing from the moment they are born- the flashy, noisy toys that they play with every single day."From the time children learn to talk, they are mesmerized by the sounds and moving images of Sesame Street" (200).
I feel that maybe the reason that I was to memorized by this is maybe because this particular toy (her mothers iphone)was so technological advanced. When I was little, I never even dreamed of playing with something like this, those were the kind of things that I pictured the future to hold. I guess it really just makes me feel that 2010 is the future that as kids we only used to imagine.
I believe that kids today are very reliant on media today. They have much more access to technology than the previous generations did. However, I have to question whether media is hurting young children rather than helping them. I think that there is a positive side to the fact that children today have access to so many technologies. From personal experience, I can say that the technology children have access to today is not entirely bad. I believe that technology has broadened the skills many children develop today. For example, children are becoming more literate in a way because they are using technology that requires those who use it to have some knowledge about the product or learn about it. I also read in an article on PBS before that many parents are using educational softwares that are helping children develop critical skills that they will be able to use during the beginning of their formal education. I also think that the media can be beneficial for many because it helps them develop their social skills. I personally feel more comfortable writing an email and texting than having a face to face conversation with someone I don’t know. The reason I think I feel more comfortable is because for me is less intimidating than having to deal with a stranger’s attitude towards something or someone. The Baran and Davis reading for the week discusses how the media has become a way for many to experience the aspects of the world around them (Baran and Davis 200). I think that if didn’t use the media to experience certain things, I wouldn’t take the initiative to experience it in reality. For example I use the media to inform myself of places where I would like to travel before I actually do. I don’t find something interesting about a place that caught my attention I won’t even bother with visiting the place. I’m not going to deny that people are influenced by what they see on the media. The McQuail reading for the week highlight that there are connections between people and products that are advertised on the media. McQuail asserts, “Certainly advertising sets up connections between certain types of consumers and certain products” (McQuail 300). Although the media can be affecting children physically there are some positive aspects to the way media is consumed among young people.
ReplyDeleteI feel that kids today are very dependent on their media consumption today. This is because today everyone is quite dependent on their media consumption. With the rapid advent of technology, media has become a constantly accessible part of our every-day lives so this dependence is not easily avoided. It has a definite impact on social skills because it adds a new element to the equation, and that is online socialization. Kids now learn their social skills from internet interaction and socialization as well as in real life. This has to have an effect on their social skills in some way, although i'm not sure exactly how. When I was a child the internet was not easily accessible, video games were still rather crude, and there seemed to be more of a parental attempt to get children to do other things besides watching tv. I can clearly remember me and my friends, in the mid to late 90s, being taken to all sorts of places by our parents to get us out of the house and doing things quite frequently. I feel like today this is not as much a concern because children's media is deemed educational or beneficial so parents don't feel the same urgent need to give their children an equal time away from it. So, yes, kids today do have it worse, not wildly so, but definitely face a greater difficulty in resisting media dependence than our generation did.
ReplyDeleteI am very interested by childhood. I hope to use my media studies major to better understand media patterns and changers in children. Despite the fact I am only 21, I feel I have seen at least two generation-like groups of children grow up. The main difference between them, besides around 4 years being, those that feel entitled to media, and those that saw it as an occasional extracurricular.
ReplyDeleteI was lucky as a child to have my parents completely regulate the amount of positive and negative media in my life. An example that illustrates Baron and Davis's point when saying, "Children begin watching television attentively by the age of three. Before most children start school or form close relationships with peers, they have learned the names of countless television characters and are fans of particular programs"(200)is:
When I was a child the media characters that friends and peers would take outside to act out were the power rangers and ninja turtles, working to promote the greater good and with skills that could be taken outside.
Now, my boyfriends 6 and 8 year old siblings will either take their aggressive energy out on Mature video game content such as Call of Duty. If we're lucky they'll take toy guns outside and committ imitation violence.
I feel there definitely needs to be more positive role models for children's media. They should anticipate the outlets children need such as outside playtime and cater to creating positive role models.
I think that kids are very dependent on media consumption, but I don't think that this is entirely a bad thing. Because of the ways kids have grown up surrounded by media/media technologies, kids will become more adaptable to change, where someone in our parent’s generation might have a harder time becoming used to certain mass medias.
ReplyDelete"Media has become a primary means by which many of us experience or learn about many aspects of the world around us."(B&D 200) On this page Baron and Davis continue to talk about how whether or not kids directly get their information from media, they will learn about them from other people who get their ideas directly from media. I strongly agree with this, because if there was no internet, I would never have a clue what was going on in worldwide news, simply because I don't consume media on television. But, I do think that too much media consumption could be bad for children.
I could see where people might think that the impact the media leaves on kids could be a bad thing because media is literally consumed every second of our lives. I do think that there could be problems like being anti-social due to media consumption, but if this is the concern, then parents need to do more to keep their kids active. I know when I was younger I was outside playing sports with my friends and staying active where nowadays kids are on their cell phones by age 6 if not younger or playing video games for hours.
Media is a crucial part of the world today, and I do think that kids have changed from when I was a kid. Kids today are very influenced in my opinion. "Advertising forms a vast superstructure with an apparently autonomous existence and an immense influence."(McQuail, 299) I think that the advertising that kids see today can strongly effect their decisions on what is considered "cool" or not. Kids are exposed to models for example at a young age which could really affect body image, or what type of hair style they should wear. I think that ads have huge control on kids and this could be a really bad influence on them in the long run.
I feel that today's media is definitely helping kids.Through shows like Sesame Street and other shows that are guided for the pre-school age, they can learn without going to school and it makes it fun for them.
ReplyDeleteBaran and Davis say that "modern mass media dominate every day communication. From the time children learn to talk they are mesmerized by the sounds and moving images of Sesame Street." (300). I think this is completely dead on, and as long as children can be able to benefit positively from the show, then media can be a good thing for children.
As far as advertising goes, I think that kids can be influenced too much in that regard. It creates a atmosphere of need and greed by the way the commercials are aged towards kids. "They provide us with a structure in which we, and those goods are interchangable."(300, McQuail).