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Technology and Its Negative Effects on Children An Assignment Submitted by Name of Student Name of Establishment Class XXXX, Section XXXX, Fall 2012

TITLE OR TOPIC IN CAPS Technology and Its Negative Effects on Children

Physical life. Todays technologies allow round-the-clock media access, which has become a significant part of childrens everyday activities. The amount of time children spend with entertainment media like watching TV or playing video games has risen dramatically, as the vast majority of teens spend hours sitting around playing video games all day rather than being physically active. According to a study by Kaiser Family foundation, today, children aged 8-18 spend an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes out of a typical day using entertainment media; that makes more than 53 hours a week (News Release, January 2010).This causes obesity problems, which, in their turn, can lead to issues in social life. According to WHO, in 2010 the number of overweight children under the age of five, was over 42 million globally (WHO, Childhood overweight and obesity). Moreover, media and information technologies can make children lazy. Internet can provide children with instant access to information, which absolves them of the need to do research. Doing homework becomes googling, with no brain activity and creativeness. Due to advanced communication technologies, children tend to expect immediate responses, having no patience whatsoever. Social Life. The social effect can get even more severe, taking into consideration the level of violence children see in video games and on TV. This may provoke physical aggression in children. Media infuses childrens values with bad role images, often heralding negative characters and violent actions. Technological addiction can cause the screen-violence to transfer into real life. The negative effect of violent computer games on children is well-documented (Lin & Atkin, 2006). Moreover, tech addiction also

TITLE OR TOPIC IN CAPS indirectly leads to law-breaking like illegal downloading. As technologies affect the free time of the children, media activities take the time that could otherwise have been spend with family. The meaningful parent-kid communication becomes scarce, to some extent alienating family members. Virtually socializing erases the distinction between online friends and real friends; an online meeting goes for a Friday night party. Technologies like social media can cause child abuse; according to the 2009 annual Intelligence Report by Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, 22% of all online abuse reported in 2008-2009 took place in a social networking environment, compared with 11.4% the previous year. The growth rate has gained speed by 2012 (Fisher, 2009). Academic life. Instead of going into extracurricular activities and sports, children hurry home to play video games or socialize online. Children tend to multitask a lot, often texting, communicating on social media and watching TV at once. This makes it harder for them to focus on academic activities. Studies by Dr. Rosen at California State University showed that the majority of teens aged 16-18 perform an average of 7 tasks, at one time like texting, communicating on Facebook, playing games and more, with TV on. Sometimes they use mobile phones to text or connect to social media during class time. This makes them miss out important points.

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References

Daily Media Use Among Children and Teens Up Dramatically From Five Years Ago. January 20, 2010. Retrieved from http://www.kff.org/entmedia/entmedia012010nr.cfm

Fisher,Tia. CEOP reports Increase in Child Abuse from Social Networking Sites. 26 October, 2009. http://www.emoderation.com/ceop-reports-increase-in-child-abuse-fromsocial-networking-sites

Lin, C. A. & Atkin D. J. Communication Technology and Social Change: Theory and Implications. Routledge, 2006

The Children of Cyberspace: Old Fogies by Their 20s. The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. Web. 21 Mar. 2010. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/weekinreview/10stone.html?scp=1&sq=technology %20children&st=cse.

World Health Organization (WHO). Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health. Childhood overweight and obesity. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/childhood/en/

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