Television and the Family

(Written by Allen)

I came across the following quote while reading an articles for class and found it to be quite interesting and insightful.

In describing the effect of television on patterns of family interaction, the author concluded: "The nature of the family social life during a program could be described as 'parallel' rather than interactive, and the set does seem quite clearly to dominate family life when it is on."

Now here's the kicker...the article was written in 1951!!!!

A subsequent article (written in 1974) described how the primary importance of television for child development may lie "no so much in the behavior it produces as the behavior it prevents," with the prevented behavior being "the talks, the games, the family festivities, and arguments through which much of the child's learning takes place and his character is formed"

These are comments made when there was (at most) one television in a household, 3-4 channels, some of which only broadcasted a few hours of the day. Where are we today?