Discussion — Whether watching TV is harmful or beneficial for children

Few household objects have been blamed for as much as the television. Some adults regard it as a threat to children's bodies and minds, while others insist that it teaches more than it harms; I believe that the screen itself is neutral and that the outcome is decided by what is watched, for how long and with whom.

Critics of television are right about what it can displace. An hour in front of cartoons is an hour not spent running, drawing or talking, and a child who watches for most of the afternoon is leading a sedentary lifestyle before the age of ten. Programmes that change scene every few seconds may also make the slower pace of a book or a lesson seem dull. Content is a further concern. Young children cannot tell persuasion from information, so advertisements for sweets and fizzy drinks work on them with particular force, and fights that look harmless on screen are sometimes re-enacted in the playground.

Supporters, however, point to programmes made with children's learning in mind. Sesame Street has introduced generations of pre-schoolers to letters and numbers, and nature documentaries bring coral reefs and polar bears, which no school trip could offer, to a child in a city flat. For young learners of English, cartoons provide hours of natural pronunciation that a textbook cannot. These benefits are real, but they are far from automatic. They appear when the programme suits the child's age, when viewing is limited, and above all when a parent watches alongside and talks about the story, turning passive viewing into conversation.

Television, in other words, harms children when it is used as an electronic babysitter and helps them when it is treated as one carefully chosen activity among many. Since both results come from the same device, I would argue that the debate should be about the adults who hold the remote control.