A report indicated that many children between 7 and 11 spend too much time watching television and playing videos game. How does this problem affect children? What measures can be taken to control it?

Television is ubiquitous these days; I have not come across a single household where there is no TV. But is watching TV good for children? Well, I am a strong believer that anything done in moderation is good and the same goes with children watching TV. TV provides an efficient source of learning for children if right channels are watched. We generally are able to grasp and remember more things when we see and hear rather than read it and here is where TV is really useful. These days we have different channels focusing only on children like cartoons or more educational channels like animal planet, discovery channel etc. All these channels help in educating children in an effective manner. This definitely suggests that TV helps children in their development and makes them active. TV also has some negative impacts on children. Sometimes, they squander too much time in watching TV and watching wrong channels. It is of utmost importance that parents closely monitor their children. With the advent of technology, we now have televisions with child lock system in place, which could prevent children from watching irrelevant and adult channels. Parents should extol the importance of watching news channels to develop overall general knowledge of children. When I was growing up, my parents made sure that I watch the news for at least half an hour in a day. This really helped me in improving my General Knowledge and I gradually developed the interest in politics and also watching different debates and group discussions helped me improving my speaking skill. In a nutshell, I think as every coin has two sides, so does television. Watching TV in moderation and under parents’ guidance is good for children entertainment and learning but it is important that parents keep a check on the channels that their children watch and the amount of time being spent on watching TV.