If you’ve ever had a hard time articulating your objections to letting children watch TV, watch this. You’re now prepared!
Dimitri Christakis is a pediatrician, parent, and researcher whose influential findings are helping identify optimal media exposure for children.
Apr 22
I wish I recorded this. I cannot find it online anywhere! But even still, Teletoon will understand what I am talking about, and I sent this to every teletoon email address on their site.
It’s 9:49pm Friday April 22nd 2011 and I am sitting here with 3 kids watching Futurama, on Teletoon (ch45). Viewer discretion is advised for the program so Teletoon has met their legal obligations with respect to the program. Congrats, well done. But what I have not seen is a warning with regards the Teletoon promo spots they’re running, and that’s what I’m writing about.
A moment ago when the program ended and the commercial break began, the first promo to run before the commercials subliminally instructed the viewers to watch porn online.
The viewer discretion notice mentioned above stated that viewers should be over 14 years old. It would seem that someone in their programming department is completely retarded because porn is very obviously intended for, and marketed to, people over 18. That point should be enough right there, but it gets worse.
The Teletoon promo featured an excited narrator informing and instructing viewers about the Teletoon promo – the point of which was lost on me because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing at that moment. In addition to the voice there was animated text appearing and disappearing on the screen. When the narrator instructed viewers to go online the words “WATCHING PORN ONLINE” appeared in a sentence, in black text. Then the word porn was circled in red and crossed out.
As an adult I understand the potential message: “what I am saying is better than porn online, which is what you use the internet for anyways.” Or something to that effect. Or, I am completely wrong. Regardless, the text on the screen should not have appeared when the audience was expected to be at least 14 years old. In fact, considering Teletoon draws primarily youths, it should not have appeared at all.
Fortunately for me, the children who were with me did not pay any attention to it as far as I could determine. Had they noticed or asked me what that porn word was, I would be in a less than favourable situation because, how do you answer that without lying to them, yet satisfying the question to a point where they drop it right there?
No one can reason, to any intelligent person, that they honestly believe that’s the right message to display, or that they don’t think the kids are going to google that word.
We must come to the realization that there is a difference between Right and Wrong. It is obvious that society in North America has lost this understanding, and those remaining who respect it are not aggressive enough to give it traction.
Other:
Another parent with beef against Teletoon
How to contact Teletoon
Mar 6
Music – Written & Recorded by: Steve Phillips
Title: Dumbing Down
http://www.youtube.com/user/StevePhillips11
http://www.stevephillips-music.com/
Song Lyrics:
They’re dumbing us down
putting aspartame in our drinks
and fluoride in our toothpaste and the water
until we can’t even think straight any more
Taking prozac when we’re down
ritalin for the kids and
tamiflu for the swine flu scare
we just can’t feel no more
Things are not what they seem
It’s all a dream
There’s chemtrails in the sky and
pollution in the sea
there’s Monsanto taking over the food chain
but we just don’t see the lies
The TV and the newspapers
they’re keeping us all asleep
the bankers and the oil men
they’re feeding off our sheep mentality
Things are not what they seem
It’s all a dream
An eye for an eye
and a tooth for a tooth
we’re so busy fighting each other that we don’t see
only the truth will set us free
Things are not what they seem
It’ all a dream
Exercise is just as important for kids as it is for adults, but unfortunately many children are emulating their parents and getting far less physical activity than they need to stay healthy.
Less than one-third of kids aged 6 to 17 get at least 20 minutes of vigorous exercise a day, and the 2010 Shape of the Nation Report from the American Heart Association and the National Association for Sport and Physical Education actually recommends one hour of exercise a day for Americans of all ages.
Kids are clearly falling way short of this goal. The report states:
“The reality, of course, is that children and adolescents in the United States are primarily sedentary. Most kids under age 18 spend the majority of their day sitting in classrooms, and a big part of their free time outside of school watching television, playing video games or surfing the Internet.”
Too much sedentary time is one of the forces driving the child obesity epidemic. About one-third of U.S. children aged 2-19 years are now overweight or obese, and childhood diabetes has increased 10-fold in the last 20 years. Read the rest of this entry »
Almost half of kids spend at least two hours a day watching TV. While this may sound harmless enough, numerous studies have come out showing that TV is definitely taking its toll on American children.
For instance, a study in the April 2004 journal Pediatrics found that every added hour of watching TV increased a child’s odds of having attention problems at age 7 by about 10 percent. Those who watched for three hours a day between the ages of 1 and 3 were 30 percent more likely to have attention trouble at age 7 than those viewing no TV.
The notion that kids watch far too much TV is a no-brainer, literally. My strong recommendation is to minimize TV watching to no more than a few hours per WEEK, as a short attention span is only the beginning of the problem with TV. Here are some of the other negatives of kids watching TV: Read the rest of this entry »
Feb 9
I looked at some research into how TV affects the viewers brain. I will try to explain it in simple terms (because I am rather simple myself)
Now, with that said, what happens when the brain reacts, then is suppressed – repeatedly? Well, over a 120 minute movie with the action, romance, and drama peaking and falling throughout, the brain gets a good workout. As an adult you’re used to it, but with a kid, they’re just learning to suppress these things, and what happens is they build up the feelings rather than suppressing them. So, at the end of a fighting movie they want to release that build up, and they act-out. At the end of a sad movie they might be on a downer, or appear saddened. Over time, they develop coping mechanisms, but some kids don’t and they act-out all the time, and as they grow up they act-out on a larger scale.
Think About It.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/10/20/how-television-affects-your-brain-chemistry-and-that-s-not-all.aspx
Dr. Mercola is the founder of the world's most visited natural health web site, Mercola.com. You can learn the hazardous side effects of OTC Remedies by getting a FREE copy of his latest special report The Dangers of Over the Counter Remedies by going to his Report Page.
