Television and Child Development
By Gabriel Pitaro

For my book report I chose the book Television and Child Development by Judith Van Evra. In her writing Van Evra delves into the increased presence of media and technology amongst children in todays society and the effects it is having on their development. She breaks it down into four different categories, physical, cognitive, social and emotional development. Throughout the book Evra explores the ways in which media actually effects children as well as the other variables that come into play in the development of a child. By doing all of this research her goal is to find ways to maximize technology’s potential for improving development while neutralizing the negative effects as much as possible. Her research spans well beyond television, observing the effects video games, DVDs, cell phones and the Internet have on children as well. Overall I found it to be a very compelling book that had many strong connections to the material we learned in this course. Evra begins her book by reviewing previous findings and theories about psychology and child development. Many of the theories she covers are ones that we have also reviewed in our course. She discusses Bandura and his theory of model behavior as it applies to television. Bandura conducted a study where two groups of children would watch an adult act aggressively towards a doll before being given a chance to interact with the doll themselves. For one group, the adult was reprimanded and punished while for the other group the adult’s aggressive behavior had no consequences. Bandura found that children from the first group showed no hostility toward the doll, while children from the second group would attack the doll relentlessly. According to Evra, the results of this experiment hold true in today’s world regarding children and the media they use. A child that watches a violent movie or plays a violent video game is likely to carry the aggression they see into their real lives unless the violence is negatively reinforced. In most cases however, violence on television or in movies is glorified, leading to it also becoming glorified in the mind of the child. Another topic Evra covers is Gerbner’s cultivation theory and how it relates to child development. The cultivation theory states that as people spend more time immersing themselves in the world of television, they become more likely to mirror what they see and apply it to their real life. Evra’s research suggests that this theory is strongly applicable in today’s society because of the high amounts of drama and dispute seen on TV. She found that “long term exposure to television, in which frequent violence is virtually inescapable, tends to cultivate the image of a relatively mean and dangerous world. Responses of heavier compared to matching groups of lighter viewers suggest the conception of reality in which greater protection is needed, most people cannot be trusted, and most people are just looking out for themselves (Evra p.16).” I find this to be a very strong argument for the negative effects that TV has on children. Research shows that from ages eight to thirteen the average child spends close to seven hours per day watching television. There is convincing evidence that by doing this they are cultivating strong feelings of distrust and selfishness from a very early age. These traits are likely to manifest themselves and carry over into adolescence and adult hood, one day creating a generation of narcissistic disparagers. Adding the glorified view of violence from the previous chapter paints a truly scary picture of what children today could develop into ten years from now. When reading this book I thought Evra had many strong points to her arguments. The extensive amount of research and legwork she conducted in order to support her ideas was very impressive. She also recalled the theories and ideas of many respected psychologists that we covered in this class (Bandura, Freud, Gerbner to name a few) to support her findings. In addition she tested philosophies from lesser-known minds such as Rubin and Dominick, which only strengthens her credence in my opinion. One of the major strengths of this book to me is the objective point of view that Eva narrative offers. This book is simply a presentation of facts and research. There is no attempt to sway the reader towards hating television or using it even more. Instead Evra leaves you to make your own informed decision based off of her findings. The only glaring weak point to me was that the book got a little dull and boring as it went along. Evra never strays from her matter of fact, straightforward writing and it grows a little tiresome by the later stages of the book. This was not necessarily a surprise to me however, given the educational and investigatory nature of the topic. All in all I definitely enjoyed this book. It is a great read for just about all ages. Parents looking to help their children can find very useful information on ways to protect their kids from the harms of media. Children themselves can also be made aware of the dangers present to them in the television they watch or the video games they play. It is evident that media and technology have a very influential role in today’s society, and this book helps not only to inform us of these influences, but also educates us on how to deal with them.