Nielson Media Research has released a survey concerning children's television viewing habits.
Youngsters two to five years old watch television more than 32 hours per week, says the survey, while children ranging ages six to eleven devote over 28 hours of the week to viewing the tube. OneNewsNow spoke with Gavin McKiernan of the Parents Television Council (PTC), who is dismayed by these statistics. "It's a frightening statement of the amount of media that our children are consuming to begin with," he laments. "Even if our media was child-friendly, which it's clearly not across the board, there [are] huge problems with children consuming this amount of the violent and sexual content that we see on television." McKiernan's concern further deals with the measure of involvement parents hold in the lives of these children. "The first line of defense in anything has to be the parents," he contends. "And there's only so much we as a society can do if parents are going to be absent in the home, and there's no way you can allow the TV to be your babysitter." According to McKiernan, many studies show that exposure to explicit media harms children. However, he concludes that the study does have a positive angle as it ought to warn parents that spending quality time with their children is vital.
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