Media and Development Paper: Psychology Essay

Media and Child Development
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Media and Child Development
Introduction
The media, including television programs and movies, has an intense influence on children's mental health, physical, and social development. There are those harmful effects and those of benefit to the growth of the middle-aged children (Takeuchi et al., 2015). Therefore, parents and physicians should discuss the appropriate age for media use, including television programs and movies.
How Television/movies change brain functioning 
The period at which the children take to watch correlates with its effects on their brain functioning. Prolonged watching causes a change in the structure of the child's brain and reduced verbal abilities. Also, it affects brain imaging; thus, the child's neural circuits become plain to see(Takeuchi et al., 2015). The more the hours, the immense the brain's septum, sensorimotor region, hypothalamus, and visual cortex become. These areas are of impact in processes such as vision, arousal, aggression, and emotional effects. Moreover, the brain's front polar cortex thickens, lowering reasoning, language, and vocabulary skills.
How Television/movies disrupt physical development
Television and movie watching often limit the middle-aged children’s time for other more productive tasks and activities such as storytelling, playing and mingling with friends, reading, learning to talk, and sending time with family and peers (Van Evra, 2004). Therefore, they are at high risk of developing obesity and other health disorders since they are physically unfit. 
Television viewing also contributes to obesity because most food adverts and primetime commercials promote diets that are not healthy for children. Most of them advertise high energy food such as sugary drinks, presweetened cereals, and fast food. Others have high-fat content that exceeds the recommended nutrition(Van Evra, 2004). The majority of the children who watch these ads believe in them, thus posing them the risk of becoming overweight, which can later carry on into adulthood weight problems.
Prolonged television and movie watching also cause altered sleep patterns and sleeping sickness among children. That affects their physical development since regular and healthy sleep is a vital part of their development.
How Television/movies influence social development
Too much watching of television programs and movies harms the social development of the children. It interferes with brain structure and promotes malicious behavior such as emotional changes, violence, irresponsible sexual behaviors, and drug abuse(Van Evra, 2004). Excessive exposure to alcohol abuse, sex, and drugs through movies and television programs may lead to vulnerable emotional changes. They get a different outlook on reality, affecting them psychologically.
Violent television programs and movies have contributed to a rise in violent behavior among children. The majority of the programs intended for children in most cases have more violence than that for adults. Most acts consist of wit, human beings experiencing pain and loss, and unpunished mistakes. Children imitate the vi...