The influence of media (such as video games, violent television, etc.) Term Paper

The influence of media (such as video games, violent television, etc.) on children - Term Paper Example Our children are being raised in an increasingly media dependent world. From the day they are born we use the silencing melodies from the radio to hush them to sleep. As toddlers and preschoolers we rely on television to help us teach them their basic counting and reading skills. Once they hit grade school, television is one way by which we hope to keep them occupied long enough for us to get other work done around the house before helping them with their studies and assignments. We get them on the internet in order to do research that is necessary for the completion of their homework. They stay in touch with their group study and class project team mates via twitter and Facebook. Obviously mass media has become a very important tool in the mental and social development of our children. The question is, how much of this influence that we allow them to be exposed to is positive? And when does it cross the line towards the negative? We have to admit that media is something that we can no longer do without in our lives. It is the greatest mover, shaker, and shaper of our cultural values and social identities. The impact of media over our lifestyle can easily be seen in the way our attitudes and beliefs change over time. This is also a change that is reflected in the way our children are growing up. (Oak, â€Å"Positive Effects of Media†). Experts have coined the term â€Å"Viewtrition† in order to describe the method by which parents should oversee the quality of the television that their children are watching ( Durrani, â€Å"TV Is Positive Influence On Child Development†). When questioned as to whether television delivered any positive impact on their childs lives, parents responded that: â€Å"Despite the negativity often associated with children watching TV, eight out of 10 parents questioned believed it has a positive effect on their childs development, including

Reflective account of your own strengths and weaknesses of academic Essay

Reflective account of your own strengths and weaknesses of academic literacy competence for undertaking this course - Essay Example Yet another area where I am confident about my performance is my computer knowledge. In fact, I possess good keyboard skills. I am good in using analysis and presentation tools for various purposes that will immensely help me in my employability skills. In addition, I have the ability to learn various computer operations, and hence, computer literacy will be a positive point in my employability. However, the area where I lag behind is the ability to comprehend what I read. I think this happens because of my poor reading habit and skills. I think this lack of ability is going to have an adverse impact on my researches if not solved. Probably as a result of this, I find it difficult to do academic writing. My research skills are rather weak because firstly, I find it difficult to gather information, and secondly, I find it difficult to synthesise the information I collect. As a result, even if I collect a lot of information, my research ends up fruitless. There are certain areas related to research that I will have to improve if I want to improve my research. The very first thing is locating useful information, because â€Å"research strategies are as friendly as a puppy, as informative as a friend’s diary, and as helpful as a personal valet† (Badke , 2004, p. 176). I need to work a lot in improving my ability to reach useful information. It will have to be followed by learning how to organise what I have collected. As I possess poor study skills, what I do is to end up with a mixture of information from various sources that are not arranged appropriately. Another point that requires improvement is my ability to evaluate the information I collect. It often happens that I fail to collect relevant information and collect irrelevant ones. However, the most important problem I need to solve is my interpretation of the collected information. Probably due to my poor reading skills, my interpretation is often biased or