Televison Affects Children

Based on my opponent's opening argument I will assume that the full resolution of this debate is that "Watching too much television harms children and should be limited," not that television simply affects children which as dollydo very well states, "The media affects us all, it does not just apply to children. " With that I will begin my rebuttals. ~~~~~~~ Rebuttals ~~~~~~~ "One problem caused by watching television is obesity. Television allows a child to be inactive for long periods of time. .. Also the commercials on television encourage unhealthy eating habits. .. How many times do you see dancing pieces of lettuce or carrots or something on television? " [There are 24 hours in your given day, lets say that your average child spends 8 or 9 of those asleep, 7 of them at school, and 1 of them eating meals. If we also add your sources average of 3 hours of television watching that leaves at least 4 hours to be active [1]. On a daily basis this is much more than enough to get a child's recommended amount of daily activity [2]. Also, here are some dancing vegetables from a PBS show [3]. ] "Some behavioral issues are caused by television too. One issue is violence. Many children watch violence on television every day. They begin to think it is normal for that kind of behavior and start acting in that way as well. "The hero of TV shows never gets in trouble for his/her violent actions. "(2) Many shows show the violent character as the "good guy". They also show the character not being harmed as they would in real life. Children need to know and understand that violence is bad and needs to be avoided. By watching television they are only encouraged to do violent acts. Another behavioral issue is a child being antisocial. Children will begin to focus only on what is in front of them instead of the world around them. By this statement I mean they will block out whoever is talking to them in order to pay attention to the television show that is on at that time. " [The first thing that I would like to point out is that your source (2) paints a very biased picture about violence on television. With that said I will now bring up the ratings system used on American television. It ranges from Y which is safe for all kids to MA which is only for legal adults. These ratings are put in place so that parents know the general content of the show that their child is watching. There are even sub-ratings such as D, S, L, and V. If a program has any of these sub-ratings then it contains an above average amount of some content that is normally found in programs of this rating. The V sub-rating is for violence [4]. If a parent is concerned about the amount of violence that their child is watching then they should not allow their children to watch any programs that may contain violence. ] ~~~~~~~~~~~ My Argument(s) ~~~~~~~~~~~ While there is a lot of television that could be considered harmful to children there is also a lot that is beneficial. These programs include, but are not limited to: *Dora the Explorer *Playhouse Disney *All children's programming on PBS *Baby Einstein These types of shows are considered educational television and are proved to be beneficial to children [5,6]. I look forward to my opponent's response and again hope for a good debate. [1] 24 - 9 - 7 - 3 - 1 = 4 [2] . http://www.cdc.gov... [3] Vegetable Soup . http://www.youtube.com... [4] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [5] . http://www.medialit.org... [6] . http://www.associatedcontent.com...