The impact of television and television advertising on children

The impact of television and television advertising on children.

The great need for discussion of the Islamic perspective concerning issue of television is clear to us all. Nowadays, television has entered the homes in every corner of the earth, the rich and the poor, the educated and uneducated, Muslim and non-Muslim. Therefore, it has become a necessity to address the issue and explain the problems and dangers of television in a clear and concise manner for the benefit of every Muslim who is seeking to please Allah, the Most High, and earn His reward.

In 2010, only months before becoming the British Prime Minister, David Cameron spoke out against the growing commercial influences on children stating:

“…you do your best as parents but there is a lot of pester going on… What we are saying is that you can’t cut children off from the commercial world, of course you can’t, but we should be able to help parents more in term of trying to make sure that our children get a childhood and that they are not subject to unnecessary an inappropriate commercialisation…” 

This short paper examined the impact of television and television advertising on today’s youth. The need for such a review is paramount given that the methods by which children and young adult are influenced with each day multiplying and becoming ever more inventive. One of the unconscious difficulties faced by parents today is that they often lack a clear understanding of the ways in which their children are being influenced and so lack the ability to make an informed choice regarding what is best for their children. Parents should empowered with the knowledge and understanding needed for deciphering the dangers and traps posed by the virtual world to their children.

In the Quran when Almighty God stated:

“..their ears and their eyes and their skins will bear witness against them as to what they had been doing. And they will say to their skins: "Why bear ye witness against us?" They will say: "Allah hath given us speech― (He) Who giveth speech to everything: He created you for the first time, and unto Him were ye to return. "Ye did not seek to hide yourselves, lest your hearing your sight, and your skins should bear witness against you! But ye did think that Allah knew not many of the things that ye used to do! "But this thought of yours which ye did entertain concerning your Lord, hath brought you to destruction and (now) have ye become of those utterly lost!" (Holy Quran,41: 21-23) 

The Quran literature further explain that the spiritual and physical well-being of man are intricately related. In many instances man’s desires, strengths, and weaknesses will determine how the body acts or reacts to the influences around it. A lack of balance in man’s spiritual activities will be reflected in the physical movements and developments of the body. So, be under no illusion, temptation exists and will cause us and our children to become lesser people if we do not work hard to become righteous. Righteousness or taqwa is a quality which can only be realized through adherence to the teachings of the Quran and example of the Holy Prophet.

Every Muslim is aware that television can have harmful effect on children. Television is like a third parent of children. And so the children will memorise the scene that they watch and hear on television. In the year 2000 a joint statement was issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academic of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Psychological Association, American Medical Association, American Academic of Family Physicians, and the American Psychiatric Association stating that thirty years of research and more than one thousand studies led them to the conclusion that “..viewing entertainment violence can lead to increases in aggressive attitudes, values, and behaviour, particularly in children.”  Television is one of the most prevalent media influences in kids' lives. According to Kids' Take on Media, a survey conducted in 2003 by the Canadian Teachers’ Federation, watching television is a daily pastime for 75 percent of Canadian children, both boys and girls from Grade 3 to Grade 10.How much impact television has on children depends on many factors: how much they watch, their age and personality, whether they watch alone or with adults, and whether their parents talk with them about what they see on television. To minimize the potential negative effects of television, it's important to understand what the impact of television can be on children. 

Children’s television advertising has been the cause of much controversy over recent decades. Given the enormous market share that children both command and influence, it is no wonder that advertising companies spend allot of money, time, and effort to target your children. Advertisers view children as an expanding market which they cannot afford to ignore and so investment in children is future investment as children will one day become adults and form the main consumer body. Retailers therefore compete with one another to generate band loyalty amongst children. It should also come as no surprise that for this very reason the average child views up to 40,000 television advertisements each year!  The desire to restrict advertising aimed at children is based on three concerns, first, it is believed that advertising promote superficiality and values founded in material goods and consumption. Second, children are considered inexperienced consumers and easy prey for the sophisticated persuasion of advertisers. Third, advertising influences children demand for everything from toy to snack food. These demands create an environment of child-parent conflict. Parents’ finds themselves having to say no over and over again to children whose desire are piqued by effective advertising. 

Television and advertising have been found to impact the physical human form by increasing body dissatisfaction whilst simultaneously promoting unhealthy eating. Dr.Sigman points out that the average model seen in advertising was only 8% thinner than the average lady on the street twenty-five years ago.  Compare that to today’s situation in which the difference is 23%.  It also can affect learning and school performance if it cuts into the time kids need for activities crucial to healthy mental and physical development. Most of children's free time, especially during the early formative years, should be spent in activities such as playing, reading, exploring nature, learning about music or participating in sports. Television viewing is a sedentary activity, and has been proven to be a significant factor in

childhood obesity. According to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada almost one in four Canadian children, between seven and 12, is obese. Time spent in front of the television is often at the expense of more active pastimes. A Scientific American article entitled "Television Addiction" examined why children and adults may find it hard to turn their television off. According to researchers, viewers feel an instant sense of relaxation when they start to watch television but that feeling disappears just as quickly when the box is turned off. While people generally feel more energized after playing sports or engaging in hobbies, after watching television they usually feel depleted of energy. According to the article "this is the irony of television : people watch a great deal longer than they plan to, even though prolonged viewing is less rewarding. "As well as encouraging a sedentary lifestyle, television can also contribute to childhood obesity by aggressively marketing junk food to young audiences. According to the Canadian Paediatric Society, most food advertising on children's television shows is for fast foods, candy and pre-sweetened cereals. Commercials for healthy food make up only 4 per cent of those shown. A lot of money goes into making ads that are successful in influencing consumer behaviour. McDonald's, the largest food advertiser on television, reportedly spent $500 million on their "We love to see you smile" ad campaign. 

Unfortunately the facts surrounding television and advertising only become more worrying the deeper one delves. Various have found that television viewing adversely affects the attention and cognitive functions of children. Studies have also found that television content has played a real significant part in also encouraging smoking, drinking, and the growth of other “sin products.” These are product such as cigarettes, alcohol, gambling, and the like. This type of advertising packages these and similar products in such a way that the consumer might not purchase them for their intended purpose, but because of an associated attraction such as trendiness, fashion, or an attached promotion. For example, many people begin to drink alcohol because they perceive it to be cool. Television advertising plays a massive role in encouraging young people to drink with the average person viewing more than a million acts of drinking by the time they just 18 years old. Advertisers place a lot of emphasis on portraying alcohol as a product which is fashionable and consumed by the most glamorous and idolized people in society and that alcohol, success, wealth, and a relationship with a beautiful partner are all interlinked. This type of advertising technique adopts a similar approach to what we have seen with food products, inducing positive attitudes which leave the consumer oblivious of the risks attached to the product.  Alcohol ads on television have actually increased over the last few years and more underage kids are being exposed to them than ever. A recent study by the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) found that youth exposure to alcohol ads on television increased by 30% from 2001 to 2006. And although they've banned cigarette ads on television, kids and teens can still see plenty of people smoking on programs and movies airing on television. This kind of "product placement" makes behaviors like smoking and drinking alcohol seem acceptable. In fact, kids who watch 5 or more hours of  television per day are far more likely to begin smoking cigarettes than those who watch less than the recommended 2 hours a day. 

Perhaps the most damaging aspect of television, indeed all modern commercialism, to human dignity and fundamental Islamic values is the ever growing sexualisation of children. We unfortunately live in a world wherein almost every commercial product originally

designed only for adults is now also marketed to children. A world in which our seven year old daughters can walk into most stores and purchases hot pants, padded bras, high heels, and full makeup sets; and if they don’t- well, they simply aren’t beautiful-are they?  When this is the advertising strategy aimed towards our seven years old, what chance do teenagers have of undergoing any kind of innocent and natural transition from childhood into adulthood! In 2006 the APA published the now infamous report “Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls.” The report brought to light the findings of numerous studies conducted on the subject. One of its findings was that girls who were exposed to sexual imagery and scenes on television were more likely to experience, ‘body dissatisfaction, depression, and lower self-esteem.’ Furthermore, that exposure to such television content adversely impacts young girls’ school studies and social structure. This is because they come to view beauty and not education as the key to power and success, and also accept and reject friends on the basis of vanity or the “cultural nom” rather than traditional qualities such as kindness, trust and love etc. A major area of concern is the impact of the sexualisation and objectifying of women upon the male perception of sexual harassment and violence perpetrated against women. It was found that the stereotypes of woman created and propagated by television and the media were related to sexual violence and extreme sexist beliefs. More specifically that: women and men exposed to sexually objectifying images of women from mainstream media (e.g., R-rated film, magazine advertisement, music videos) were found to be significantly more accepting of rape myths, sexual harassment, sex role stereotypes, interpersonal violence, and adversarial sexual beliefs about relationships than were those in control conditions.’ The growing concern is that with increasing sexualisation and objectifying of children’s attitudes towards sexual relations involving children and the portrayal of younger and younger children as sexual objects on our screens will become more and more acceptable to society. 

The most glaring evil propagated by the television media of the world is the crime of nudity and sexual immorality. Commercialized nudity and sexual immorality under the camouflage of "educational" pictures are accepted and necessary features of world television. The Western world is haunted by the obsession of illicit sex, and it is this carnal obsession of illicit sex coupled with the unbeliever's god of materialism which makes capital of the female body on television as well as all other mass media. The Islamic concept of morality and modesty is the very antithesis of the immorality and passivity dished out to the world via television. Islam demands the concealment of the female body. The Messenger of Allah said: "A woman is an object of concealment." (At-Tirmidhi. It was declared authentic by Shaykh al-Albani in Sahih Sunan at-Tirmidhi 1/343 no. 1189) Television is an institution which is widely used to exhibit the female body. Islam has banned all forms of immorality and immodesty, but  television exhibits immodesty and immorality in their crudest forms by depicting the actual sex acts and, above all, it audaciously and shamelessly passes these off as "educational". Television as a prime agent of immorality is very well known. The Messenger of Allah, said: "Shamelessness (immodesty) is vice, and vice will be in the fire." (Muslim 4/1375, no. 6309) 

Television besides being a powerful agent of immorality, generally fosters various types of crime. Violence, aggression, robberies, murder, etc., are crimes which the young

readily learn from television shows. Much of the delinquency and youth crimes being perpetrated in the Western world could be traced to the television. In an article entitled: television Shows Blamed For Crimes. Los Angeles judge, Mark Bridler, blasted a television crime show recently as the cause of a "seven-hour nightmare'' in which two teenagers taped shotguns to the heads of hostages and extracted a huge ransom from a Californian bank. The regular and continuous shows of violence and aggression slowly, but most certainly, claim their victims. Viewers are 'brain-washed' by the perpetual scenes of violence to such an extent that violence and aggressiveness becomes accepted as a mode of behaviour. Research has established that television exercises a very strong influence on the minds of people causig them to imitate and enact the crime shown on the television screen. Dr. Robert Liebert, a child psychologist who was a leading researcher in the United States Surgeon General's investigation into television and social behaviour, says: Violence on home screens encourages 'an acceptance of aggression as a mode of behaviour.Perfectly normal children will imitate anti-social behaviour they see on television, not out of malice, but curiosity  in showing displays of violence and criminal acts, the media is 'teaching', people are 'learning', he says. 

In various places the Quran clearly identifies that men in particular should keep their sexual desire in check as it has the potential to become one of his greatest weaknesses if left free to run wild. Parents should therefore be particularly careful with the television content and access they permit their children. They must themselves accept ample responsibility in this matter and ensure that their children are safe from the ill effects of television, advertising, and the targeted sexualisation of children. It is, after all, parents who are ultimately responsible for the food consumption, consumer purchasing, and television intake of their children. It worth remembering, that a Muslim despises hypocrisy and does not teach righteousness with right hand whilst simultaneously consuming filth with the left hand. As has been discussed, disproportionate television viewing is harmful regardless of the content. Talk to kids about what they see on television and share your own beliefs and values. If something you don't approve of appears on the screen, you can turn off the television, then use the opportunity to ask thought-provoking questions such as, "Do you think it was OK when those men got in that fight? What else could they have done? What would you have done?" Or, "What do you think about how those teenagers were acting at that party? Do you think what they were doing was wrong?" If certain people or characters are mistreated or discriminated against, talk about why it's important to treat everyone fairly, despite their differences. You can use television to explain confusing situations and express your feelings about difficult topics.  However, when you do choose to watch television try to watch beneficial and educational channels like documentary channels, and cookery channels etc (whatever interest you, has some benefit, and is halal). It is fitting that we should close with the advice of Hadrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (‘alayhi al-salam)who wrote:

‘It should be remembered that a godly person does not belong to the world, that is why the world hates him. He belongs to heaven and is bestowed heavenly bounties. A man of the world is given worldly bounties, and a man of heaven is bestowed heavenly bounties.’