This passive experience crowds out other, more active endeavors, such as congregational prayers at home, playing indoors and outdoors with family members, reading, etc. These traditional forms of interaction with children are most definitely not passive. They are all physically, mentally and spiritually active. Instead, they are cut off from participation, imagination, even from the rest of the family. The child's facial expression is transformed.
Television reveals to children all of the 'backstage' activity of adults.
It exposes children to behavior that the adults have spent centuries trying to hide from children. The average child watching television sees adults hitting or killing each other or breaking down and crying. It teaches them that adults do not always know what they are doing. Revealing the 'secrets' of adulthood has virtually destroyed the notion of childhood as a discrete period of innocence. They spend 28 hours a week watching television - more than doing any other single activity except sleeping.