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The English writer Clive James said that if you were afraid of television, you were afraid of the world. Television forms such an intrinsic part of our daily existences that to remove it from children's lives would be at least as cruel as forcing them to spend their entire lives watching it.

Obviously, there is a hell of a lot of junk on the TV that children watch as an alternative to those wholesome activities children used to get up to back in days of yore. However, my humble opinion is that this is more due to irresponsible parenting than the presence of a box in the corner of the room.

Everything should be done in moderation: if your kid is watching 16 hours of television a day, doesn't have any friends and hasn't been exposed to sunlight since 1998 then it's probable that television is having a little too much impact in their young life. But that's not the fault of television, it's the fault of the parent who can't be bothered to engage with the child's activities.

Also, if you're one of those people who hate television, the mass media and all of that evil corporate bile that supposedly emanates from the opiate-tube, what could be better than exposing your kid to the evils of corporate brainwashing early on with your critical direction. Technology is neither good nor evil, but merely amplifies certain human facets. Best to expose your kid to such things, but in order to teach them what lies behind the stupefying mirage television has to offer. To protect a child from mass media enforces a naivety which makes them more prone to exploitation at a future date.

Chances are, television will find your dearest child some day, and if they're ill-prepared to vanquish the blue seductress, then God help them if they don't have the critical faculties to discriminate between what has credence and what is an unpalatable pile of hokum!

TV, I have gathered, offers a little bit of both.

Learn more about this author, Paul Stanway.
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