Effects of television on human health edits - camera changes in the same visual scene -

While controversy continues to surround the way the one can increase the subject's physiological
content screen media affects our thoughts and excitement along with attention to the screen.
behaviour, a growing body of empirical evidence is Others have compared the attentional demands of
indicating that watching television causes children's programmes made in the public and
physiological changes, which are really not for the private sectors, that is, commercial television.
better. Most of these effects occur irrespective of the Children's television programmes increasingly
type of programme that people watch - whether it is demand constant attentional shifts by their viewers
violence or teletubbies (fun, games, etc). It is the but do not require them to pay prolonged attentional
medium, not the message. shifts to given events.
Watching television is now the industrialised world's Researchers are now asking if it is possible that
main pastime, taking up more of our time than any television's conditioning of short attentional span
other single activity except work and sleep.However, may be related to some school children's attentional
biological sciences are fast becoming the new arena deficits in later classroom settings and whether the
for examining the effects of society's favourite recent increase of attention deficit disorders in
pastime. And in industrialised societies, the findings children of school going age might be a natural
are set to recast the role of the television screen as reaction to our modern, fast culture - an attention
the greatest unacknowledged public health issue of deficit culture.
our time. Compared to the pace with which the real life unfolds
Attention and Cognition and is experienced by young children, television
The general guidelines recommend that children portrays life with the fast-forward button fully
under the age of two should not watch TV or any pressed. Rapidly changing images, scenery and
form of screen entertainment at all because events and high-fidelity sounds are highly stimulating
television "can negatively affect early brain and extremely interesting. Television is the flavour
development" and that children of all ages should enhancer of the audiovisual world, providing
not have a television in their bedroom. unnatural levels of sensory stimulation.
Early exposure to television during critical periods of The actual currency used to pay off and corrupt the
synaptic development would be associated with reward system may come in the form of the
subsequent attention problems. Little thought has neurotransmitter, dopamine. The release of
gone in to the potentially crucial role that early dopamine in the brain is associated with reward. In
childhood experiences may have on the development particular, dopamine is seen as rewarding us for
of attentional problems. paying attention, especially to things that are novel
Children who watch television at ages one and three and stimulating. This underfunctioning of dopamine
had a significantly increased risk of developing such may fail to reward the brain's attention systems, so
attentional problems by the time they were seven. they do not function effectively.
For every hour of television a child watched per day, Interestingly, adults with attention deficit disorder,
there was a significant increase in attentional who are given dopamine-boosting methylphenidate
problems. New brain-imaging studies have found (Ritalin) before doing a maths test, find it easier to
that different parts of the brain deal with different concentrate. This is partly because the task seems
types of attention and so there can be types of more interesting. More research is needed into the
attentional damage. extent to which this reward system involving
Television elicits our instinctive sensitivity to dopamine (and other neurotransmitters) is set in
movement and sudden changes in vision or sound. childhood by exposure to electronic media such as
The orienting response to television is apparent television.
almost from birth: infants, when lying on their backs Early exposure to television is now found in another
on the floor, will crane their necks around 180 childhood condition. The very latest research on
degrees to watch. Twenty years ago, studies began communication disorders suggests that early
to look at whether the medium of television alone - childhood television viewing may be an important
the stylistic techniques of cuts, edits, zooms, trigger for autism (communication disorders), the
criticism, sudden noises, not the content of the incidence of which appears to be increasing.
programme - activates this orienting response. This Research into Alzheimer's disease are concluding
was done by considering how electroencephalogram that each additional daily hour is associated as a risk
(EEG) responses were affected. factor. This, in turn, leads to cognitive impairment in
It is known that these stylistic techniques can indeed all measures, including attention, memory and
trigger involuntary physiological responses of psychomotor speed. For example, a study looking at
detecting and attending to movement - dynamic differences in cerebral blood flow between children
stimuli - something television has in abundance. playing computer games and children doing very
These techniques also cause us to continue to pay simple repetitive arithmetic adding single digit
attention to the screen. numbers found that computer games only stimulated
Most of our stares at a television screen are highly activity in those parts of the brain associated with
prone to termination, lasting less than three seconds. vision and movement as compared to arithmetic-
But as we continue to stare, it becomes progressively stimulated brain activity, adding single-digit,
less fragile, gaining a powerful attentional inertia numbers-activated areas throughout the left and
after about 15 seconds. By increasing the rate of right frontal lobes.
Television viewing among children under three years Beyond displacing physical activity, a new study has
of age is found to have a negative effect on reported a significant dose-response relationship in
mathematical ability, reading recognition and which the resting metabolic rate [REE] decreased as
comprehension in later childhood. Along with average weekly hours of TV viewing increased.
television viewing displacing educational and play One of the mechanisms by which television may
activities, it is suspected that this harm may be due induce us to eat more is through causing our brain to
to the visual and auditory output from the television monitor external non-food cues - the television
actually affecting the child's rapidly developing brain. screen - as opposed to internal food cues telling us
A 25-year study, tracking children from birth has that we have eaten enough and can stop.
recently concluded that television viewing in Experiments have found that when distracted in this
childhood and adolescence is associated with poor way humans continue to salivate unnaturally in
educational achievement by 30 years of age. Early response to more and more food when normally they
exposure to television may have long-lasting adverse would not. All of these observations occur at a time
consequences for educational achievement and later, in our history when 75 per cent of dinners are eaten
the socio-economic status and well-being. in front of the television.
Sleep A 26-year study of the association between child and
An increasing number of studies have found that adolescent television viewing and adult healthi
children get less sleep than previous generations had nvolving 1,000 children recently published in the
and experience more sleeping difficulties. New journal The Lancet, found that children who watched
research has found a significant relationship between more than two hours of television a day between the
exposure to television and sleeping difficulties in ages of five and 15 developed significant health risks
different age groups, ranging from infants to adults. many years later. The study concluded that 15 per
The number of hours of television watched per day cent of cases of raised blood cholesterol, 17 per cent
was independently associated with both irregular obesity, 17 per cent of smoking and 15 per cent of
naptime and bedtime schedules. reduced cardiovascular fitness were linked to
Moreover, passive exposure to TV of more than two television viewing that took place years before when
hours per day was strongly related to sleep the adults were children. This link remained,
disturbances. TV viewing, particularly passive TV irrespective of other factors such as social
exposures, significantly increase the risk of sleeping background, body mass index (BMI) at age five,
difficulties. On the other hand, those adolescents parents' BMI, parental smoking and the physical
who reduced their television viewing from one hour activity of children by the age of 15.
or longer to less than one hour per day experienced Other biological changes strongly associated with
a significant reduction in risk for subsequent sleep watching television range from a clinically increased
problems. risk of abnormal glucose metabolism and new type
The implications may be serious. Studies have shown two diabetes in adults, through substantial increases
that lack of sleep can significantly alter levels of the in myopia (short sightedness), to increases in
hormone melatonin, an extremely powerful migration of coetaneous immune system mast cells
antioxidant. Reduced amounts of melatonin may which also lost their granular content and the
result in a greater chance that the cell DNA will cytoplasm shrunk.
produce cancer-causing mutations. Watching television, irrespective of the content, is
Melatonin also causes sleepiness. As it grows dark, increasingly associated with unfavourable biological
the melatonin levels rise and help facilitate sleep. and cognitive changes. These alterations occur at
Researchers have reported that exposure to a viewing levels far below the population norm. Given
television screen was associated with lower urinary the population's sheer exposure time to this
melatonin levels, particularly affecting younger environmental factor it is more than puzzling to
children at a pubertal stage when important changes consider how little awareness and action has
in melatonin's role take place. resulted.
Perhaps because television is not a dangerous
Body Fat substance or a visibly risky activity, it has eluded the
Research from as far as China and Mexico is scrutiny that other health issues attract. Additionally,
increasingly identifying television exposure as an there is little attention being paid in looking for the
independent factor in obesity. Mexico's health negative effects of the world's favourite pastime.
ministry has reported that obesity has risen by 170 Conversely, when research is directed at identifying
per cent in a single decade, with odd ratios of what is termed "opportunities in the media-rich
obesity, 12 per cent higher for each hour of home" and methods to increase so-called "media
television watched per day. While in China, a study of literacy" or "visual literacy", encouragement and
10,000 people found that for each hour of television funding appear highly forthcoming. Therefore, it is
viewing, there was a significant increase in the hardly surprising that the incriminating research
prevalence of obesity. A study in New Zealand concerning screen media is coming from beyond the
following children from birth to 15 years recently domains of media studies, education and psychology.
found the amount of television viewing to be a more Television is something that is widely recognised as
significant factor in obesity than the effect sizes being so influential and potentially dangerous, but
often reported for nutritional intake and physical has resulted in so little effective action. To be sure,
activity. there has been some lack of political will to take on
the enormously powerful and influential
entertainment industry to be recognised as a major
public health issue". The biological sciences are
instrumental in providing an alternative account of
the influence of screen media. By ignoring these
observations, findings may ultimately be responsible
for the greatest health scandal of our time.
Television is something that is widely recognised as
being so influential and potentially dangerous, but
has resulted in so little effective action. To be sure,
there has been some lack of political will to take on
the enormously powerful and influential
entertainment industry to be recognised as a major
public health issue". The biological sciences are
instrumental in providing an alternative account of
the influence of screen media. By ignoring these
observations, findings may ultimately be responsible
for the greatest health scandal of our time.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Effects-Of-Television-On-
Humans