by Christopher Kendalls

Created on: November 21, 2007

Television isn't the issue, in fact television isn't even cool, or chic as a child, particularly for teenagers. Children avoid television at all costs adults are the ones that are caught up in the media and what is aired there. Big media has to go out of its way to appeal to children with programs conjured up through professionals, analysts, and child psychologists; it isn't a child's natural inclination to want to watch TV on the first place.

When I was a kid we had a bunch of retreads of old tried and true cartoons and attempts at children's television on cable, most notably Nickelodeon and even an attempt at HBO to appeal to children through Fraggle Rock, Jim Henson's contemporary attempt at creating children's television programming. Educational shows like Sesame Street, and anything else that came on PBS were interesting, but I can't say that I really learned anything from those shows. The real learning came at school, as it should.

We should know this, but we now have television shows for infants and video series like Baby Einstein that attempt to impart knowledge to kids as soon as they leave the womb. But are any of these shows really effective, or do they just earn a lot of money for advertisers and television programmers? We know that kids are glued to the television because the cartoons have bright colors, loud sounds and a bunch of action. But aside from that obvious attempt to reach them how influenced are children by television really?

Early attempts at both child and youth television programming finally paid off; Nickelodeon went on to create movies out of their television show and MTV put out a number of successful movies that weren't even related to their reality series. But the reality is that there are a number of attempts to grab market share amongst children outside of television, and alienating them from television and failing to teach them about making informed choices wouldn't do them any justice whatsoever.

Children will continue to be bombarded with messages whenever they visit the grocery store, eat in their school cafeteria or attend college campuses as young adults. All around them, is an atmosphere underwritten and subsidized by major corporations because we do not want to spend our hard earned tax money to support schools. When you're at a varsity basketball game and the scoreboard is donated by Pepsi and you have textbooks with advertisements for Coke products ask yourself if the real issue is television, or the fact that we are so consumed with making it that we haven't made time out for our children. As opposed to it as I am, I would rather buy my own kids school products than to have them emblazoned with conspicuous advertising for junk food, cell phones or other products. Television and multimedia is a way of life, you can try to live without it, but you have to have some realistic discussion of why it isn't there and offer a viable alternative when you do so.

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