What are some ADVANTAGES of TV?

What are the advantages of reading books over watching TV?

• What are the benefits of reading versus watching TV? I love to read, my wife loves to watch TV. She is not convinced that reading is inherently more beneficial to the development of a person (e.g., intellectually) than watching TV. We now have two children, whom I want to develop a love of reading, and I?m looking for arguments to support the activity of reading over watching TV. Material regarding benefits from scientific studies is preferred, at least as a starting point to a good answer.

• Answer:

  Hi Marc! I am reposting all the material below to make my answer official. Advantages of Reading over Watching TV 1. ?Much TV watching is extremely simple learning. The quick change of visuals and the fast pace of the scenes causes the visuals to dominate the language. Children don?t ask questions. Whereas, when children read and turn away to ask a question, the book is still there when they turn back. 2. TV breaks attention into 30 second breaks ? at most a few minutes ? breaking attention spans into small parts. Reading causes children to want to spend more and more time concentrating. As they get better, attention spans lengthen. 3. Reading emphasizes higher level learning and hierarchies of ideas. TV has few hierarchies. It usually operates at a simplistic level of emotional reaction, so that anyone can surf at any time and know what is going on. 4. TV lauds simple solutions. Reading emphasizes hierarchical thinking and detail. It builds an appreciation of complexity.? The State of Media Education New Mexico Media Literacy Project http://www.healthyyork.org/hycc/pages/TVguide.pdf =============================================== From Teachers.net: TV fosters a shorter attention span: ?In breaking its programs into eight-minute commercial segments (shorter for shows like "Sesame Street"), it requires and fosters a short attention span. Reading, on the other hand, requires and encourages longer attention spans in children. Good children's books are written to hold children's attention, not interrupt it. Because of the need to hold viewers until the next commercial message, the content of television shows is almost constant action. Reading also offers action but not nearly as much, and reading fills the considerable space between action scenes with subtle character development.? Reading is a social experience ?For young children television is an antisocial experience, while reading is a social experience. The three-year-old sits passively in front of the screen, oblivious to what is going on around him. Conversation during the program is seldom if ever encouraged by the child or by the parents. On the other hand, the three-year-old with a book must be read to by another person---parent, sibling, or grandparent. The child is a participant as well as a receiver when he engages in discussion during and after the story.? ?Television deprives the child of his most important learning tool: questions. Children learn the most by questioning. For the more than 20 hours a week that the average five-year-old spends in front of the set (usually alone or with siblings), he neither asks a question nor receives an answer.? Vocabulary ?The vocabulary of television is lower than nearly all forms of print, from comic books to children's books and newspapers and magazines. A study of the scripts from eight programs favored by teenagers showed a sentence averaged only seven words (versus eighteen words in my local newspaper). Since TV is a picture medium, a fair comparison would be with children's picture books: 72 percent of the TV scripts consisted of simple sentences or fragments. Make Way for Ducklings, by Robert McCloskey, only 33 percent of the text is simple sentences; The Tale of Peter Rabbit, by Beatrix Potter, only 21 percent of the text is simple sentences.? Teachers.net http://www.teachers.net/gazette/FEB02/trelease.html =============================================== Obesity ?One sedentary behavior in particular has drawn the attention of public-health researchers. In a landmark study that compared watching TV to reading, sitting at a desk, and driving, Hu found that TV watching is far more likely to lead to obesity and diabetes than any of the other sedentary behaviors. First, Hu explains, "when people watch TV, they eat." Second, they tend to make bad food choices: TV watchers eat more junk food and fast food. And when people watch TV, their metabolic rate (the rate at which energy is burned) drops lower than when they sit and read or work on a computer. "The reason is that TV watching is completely passive," says Hu. "It is almost like sleeping ? sit back and relax ? that's the message." People who watch TV also tend to spend a lot of time at it (women watch at least an hour more per day than men). And so prolonged TV watching ? Hu calls it "a major public-health hazard" ? displaces other activities that would be better for people's health. Gortmaker, who pioneered studies of television watching among American children (60 percent of whom have a television in the room where they sleep), notes that among youth, time spent watching television is the one behavioral variable most predictive of obesity.? Les Mills http://www.lesmills.co.nz/news_content.cfm?&newsid=2 =============================================== There is a section in the book ?Strategies for Stay-at-Home Parents? by Kristine Berggren regarding the benefits of reading versus watching television. ?The middle section of the book is devoted to parenting ? after all, that?s why moms and dads stay home with their kids in the first place. From good nutrition and nap time to the benefits of reading versus watching television, this long chapter stands alone as a helpful primer for first-time parents. ? http://www.thecatholicspirit.com/archives.php?article=2670 You may purchase the book here: http://www.meadowbrookpress.com/productinfo.aspx?productid=133&categoryid=0&startpage=1 =============================================== The Value of Reading "Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body" -Sir Richard Steele. by Larry Greider http://www.ucgstp.org/lit/vt/vt03/reading.htm =============================================== Reading Versus Television The Homeschool Times http://www.homeschooltimes.com/ezine/011-1/03.htm =============================================== The Impact of Television & Video Entertainment on Student Achievement in Reading and Writing. By Ron Kaufman ?When a child learns to read and write, he must access the schema developed in his brain. As he reads, the child creates pictures in his mind and uses imagination and points of reference to put the story together. "Television images do not go through a complex symbolic transformation. The mind does not have to decode and manipulate during the television experience," says Winn. "It may be that television-bred children's reduced opportunities to indulge in this 'inner picture-making' accounts for the curious inability of so many children today to adjust to nonvisual experiences." Watching television (and playing video games) does not develop a child's skills in word recognition, decoding, vocabulary, spelling or high-level thinking. ? ?Winn asserts that "the connection between television's effects on children's reading abilities and the decline in their writing skills is clear: there is no question in the minds of educators that a student who cannot read with the true comprehension will never learn to write well. Writing, after all, is book talk . . . and you only learn book talk by reading." Winn makes a direct connection between television watching and inadequate writing skills. She notes that reading and writing are simply neglected by a generation raised on television.? (. . .) ?A study sponsored by the Kaiser Family Foundation released in November, 1999 revealed that most children between 2 and 18 years old are exposed to an average of 6 1/2 hours of daily media exposure, of which television is the most dominant. (. . .) ?The Kaiser Foundation report also notes that while the average child spends 6 1/2 hours each day with some type of electronic media, exposure to print is extremely low. On the average, 2-4 year olds and 8-13 year olds spend around 50 minutes a day reading; the 14-18 year olds spend only 13 minutes a day with print; and 5-7 year olds spend 10 minutes a day reading. The 7th through 12th graders sampled for this survey only reported 22 minutes of daily leisure reading and 25 minutes of reading to complete homework assignments.? Read the full text of this article here: http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/healtheducation/readingwriting.html =============================================== Why Watching TV Makes You Fat http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/healtheducation/junkfood.html =============================================== Check out the survey: Do you believe that reading a book is better than watching TV? http://surveycentral.org/survey/914.html =============================================== A comment taken from goodhumans.com: ?It has been shown that reading stimulates brain activity. While reading, we imagine settings, characters and we become part of the world of the story. Conversely, it has been shown that watching television hampers brain activity. It is dumbing. Children who watch too much television are less socially developed and have problems maintaining concentration. Reading instead of watching television enriches our lives, develops the imagination, and intellect, and is less brain deadening. Reading is good for you, it enriches and makes one a better person. http://www.goodhumans.com/Guidelines/Entertainment/Read_books_instead_of_watching_television_ =============================================== Best regards, Bobbie7