Monday 5 May 2014

Are the children safe from harmful media?

If you read a newspapers or watch some daily news on TV, there are many serious problems happened every day but one of interesting news is about offense involving children by accidentally or intentionally. What do you think about risk factors leading children to the wrong way?

According to “Children ‘see harmful TV material’, says National Association of Head Teacher” (2014), many parents believed that the rules protecting their children from some inappropriate media were broken because children still have many ways to access TV programs or other media with a content about sex and violence.

What is in the article might be one of many risk factors that lead children to the wrong way if they follow everything they have seen. Nowadays, I see a lot of series on TV with censorship. It sounds great but I think it is nonsense sometimes. For example, a famous soap opera I have seen last year had a suicide scene that villain held a gun on his hand and pointed at main actor but without expectation, he turned a gun quickly and shot his head. It was sure and definitely right that the creator censored this scene before publishing but I think it looked weird because everyone even the kids could guess what happened.

I am one of people who have freedom to watch TV since I was young and I could not avoid many scenes which are not suitable for me. It was very difficult to protect myself from them because almost every TV programs in Thailand are adult story. However, I did not follow any wrong behavior because my parent did not leave me alone and they gave advice to me when I watched TV. So that I think parenting is very important too. If parents always tell their children what is good and what is wrong during watching some inappropriate scene, the kid who can remember easily will know and realize what should they do. By the way, I hope that someone who is responsible for this problem will find the best way to protect children’s innocence from many risk factor before bad news are increasing.

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Reference
Richardson, H. (2014, May 3). Children ‘see harmful TV material’, says National Association of Head Teachers. BBC News Education & Family. Retrieved May 5, 2014 from http://www.bbc.com/news/education-27260438

16 comments:

  1. Does seeing sex and violence on TV harm children?
    On's experience seems to suggest it does not. And I don't think that seeing sex and violence on TV as a child harmed me.

    Maybe concerned parents and teachers should stop being concerned about this because it isn't actually a problem? What do you think? Does seeing violence, such as in cartoons, and sex on TV, or in violent video games and so harm children? Do they need to be "protected" from such things? WHy or why not?

    I'm inclined to agree with On that a lot of the censorship is nonsense. Even more stupid than the childish censoring of sex and violence by immature adult censors is the blurring of cigarettes and alcohol on some shows: that just seems really stupid and childish to me. If the adults are so immature and silly, what sort of example are they setting for children?

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  2. This article reminds me of a video game that I saw my cousin played a couple of years ago. In the game, player got points by stealing purses, taking others’ cars, attacking innocents and killing pedestrians, etc. The game was so popular among children aged around ten. I was quite shocked to see my cousin enjoyed hurting people in the game. It was cruel. Blood in the game looked so real in 3D; and it was all over the screen. I was surprised to know that his father was the one who bought him this game. I would not even think that his parents would allow him to play this kind of games. Although he didn’t actually hurt anyone, I thought the game was not appropriate for a child his age because he would get used to that much of violence.

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    1. It doesn't just your cousin, I see many young boys playing this kind of games, most often in internet cafe, some of them play without permission from their parents. I don't want to think what will happened if they can't be able to distinguish between what is just in a game and what is real life.

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  3. The researcher at the the University of Oxford found that aggressive thoughts and actions don’t come from the violent game. Kids who are bipolar, can easily become aggressive. It's depend on psychiatric conditions of kids. I think we can't blame games or soap opera for making children more aggressive.

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    Replies
    1. I like Bank's point that we should look at solid evidence, not just believe what we think sounds reasonable.

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  4. Your blog post and the responses remind me to think about the serious discussion that I had with my friends. Our discussion talked about the necessity of censorship. Many questions were asked such as what’s the standard of the censorship, why do they need to censor some scenes that children can infer what‘s happen, Is the bad scenes hurt children, are there other options that better to suggest children whether what they see is wrong, etc. In the late of our discussion, the topic was shifted to the game for children like in the response. At the end of discussion, we couldn't figure the agreement out what is right or what is wrong. By the way, I really believe there is no exact answer for this discussion because it’s always subjective.

    Note: In my discussion, we also try to find solid evidences to extend our discussion. Unfortunately, the evidences we found that came from an unreliable source. This also remind to think about not only looking for information what we want but also looking for the reliability of source where we find information.

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  5. Your blog post remind me of Thai Drama because you will see that there are so many violence such as Heroine and evil had a big fight by slap one's face include pinch the hair and pull, a man always rape a woman because he wants to punish or revenge that girl etc. Everyone think that it just a drama, don't think too much but how many people know that it will be a hint of Thai society in nowadays. I had experience from high school life and I had a fighting with spiteful girl classmate then she used some rude words which copied Thai soap opera. My close friend and I thought that Thai soap opera is non-sense, same plot. Don't watch it!

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  6. I think there's a lot of factor that can effect children and cause them to be aggressive. I don't think television programs and games are just the cause. Maybe their friends, their social, even their parents can be the cause of their aggression.

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    Replies
    1. Petch's list of likely causes sounds reasonable to me.

      My guess is that parents are almost always the biggest cause of violent children, probably followed by friends. I don't think that games or TV have more than a very small effect.

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  7. I agree with Petch and Bank. I think that there is many factor that cause child to be aggressive not only video games and soap opera. I also depends on child's mental conditions.

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  8. This article reminds me Heineken banner which was advertised behind the goals in a football stadium. The banner was blurred while I was watching via television, so I had to imagine that the ball was get into the goal or it was saved by the goalkeeper. lol
    I think the standard of censorship is crazy. May be people who set up this standard don't want children to drink beer when they grow up?
    Although I couldn't see the banner obviously in that time, I always watch live football matches in a bar and drink a lot of beer.

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    Replies
    1. Or you could not see the goal clearly because of the power of lots of beer you took. LOL

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    2. Thank you P'Pueng lol

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  9. I'm worried about the new generation kids which grew up in the digital era. Every digital media is getting more harmful because it's all accessible and children have very quick learning skill so they can learn very fast from the media without any perception because of theirs innocence. So every media organizations should beware of its content or its product because everyone can go online anywhere.

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  10. Your article reminded me to think of little children that i knew, they were innocent and try to immitate something that they were fond of in that time. One is a girl, her gesture was like a cartoon that she watched when she's 5. Another one is a boy who like cats and watching thai soup opera with his nanny,so his conversation was like actor's scripts, that weren't child words, he wanted be called him as "orange cat" in that time. I would believed that they just copied what they saw and their parents could take care and adapt their behaviour later.

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  11. I think this is one factor. Take my teacher for an example, she took her children, age around 7 years old to waldorf school(home school), actually I do not know the inside of this alternative school. Only I know is they do not permit the children to watch TV or play a digital games, even plastic toys because they think it might cause harmful effects not only violent or sex issue, but also destroying their imagination, creativity, or leading the children to be a consumerist.

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