In the last few years, reality TV has shifted from some slightly stale neglected formats (Survivor 13 and Big Brother Season 57) to being the fresh and respectable centre of the Australian television landscape in shows such as Master Chef, Junior Master Chef and the Celebrity Apprentice (The Sydney Morning Herald, 2011). However, bringing child relevant programming into prime time viewing has had an unwanted consequence in keeping children awake later during school nights according to Sarah Blunden from the University of South Australia's Centre for Sleep Research (cited in Browne, 2011).
In the article, Late programs keeping kids from a decent snooze, Blunden suggests that the thirty minutes or more of sleep lost per night to view these television shows can have a detrimental effect on a child's ability to perform well in class (cited in Browne, 2011). Blunden cautions that long term sleep deprivation in children can encourage aggressive behaviour and problems concentrating as well as discourage physical activity such as sport (cited in Browne, 2011). This negative effect contrasts with the many positive messages portrayed by Junior Master Chef about healthy eating, creativity and cultural awareness which gave it such popular and critical acclaim (Hardy, 2011).
As with the familiar messages given about healthy eating; education and moderation are the key take-home ideas from this article. Parents should be making sure that their primary school aged children's sleeping patterns are not too disrupted in becoming viewers of these television shows. The television shows also offer "catch up television" viewing options via their web sites, allowing more children friendly viewing times which parents could provide as alternatives.
References
Browne, R. (2011, October 23). Late programs keeping kids from a decent snooze, The Sydney Morning Herald, Retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au/
Hardy, C. (2011, October 5). Canberra's young chef, The Canberra Times, Retrieved from http://www.canberratimes.com.au/
The Sydney Morning Herald. (2011, October 23). Stars line up for a reality cheque, The Sydney Morning Herald, Retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au/
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Child falling asleep eating Creative Commons Photo by Lance Nishihira |
As with the familiar messages given about healthy eating; education and moderation are the key take-home ideas from this article. Parents should be making sure that their primary school aged children's sleeping patterns are not too disrupted in becoming viewers of these television shows. The television shows also offer "catch up television" viewing options via their web sites, allowing more children friendly viewing times which parents could provide as alternatives.
References
Browne, R. (2011, October 23). Late programs keeping kids from a decent snooze, The Sydney Morning Herald, Retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au/
Hardy, C. (2011, October 5). Canberra's young chef, The Canberra Times, Retrieved from http://www.canberratimes.com.au/
The Sydney Morning Herald. (2011, October 23). Stars line up for a reality cheque, The Sydney Morning Herald, Retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au/
Kylie Lang in the Sunday Mail P10 23 October P10, supports the view of this blog that reality TV is not healthy for the youth and particularly girls aged 11 – 17. She reported on October 23 2011 that 63% of girls find it tough to put trust in other girls and believe that it is girl’s nature to be catty. This views streams directly from watching such television programs as The Bad Girls Club. Evidence of this view is supported by Jennifer Pozner in her book Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth about Guilty Pleasures who in her interview with Chris Lombadi reported that shows such as Survivor and The Bachelor demoralise women, setting them against one another. She reported that in watching The Bachelor she saw women lining up, competing to be the prettiest, skinniest white girl, chosen by a guy they just met. The producer of the show stated that it was “always fun to watch girls cry.” (Pozner, 2010) When these aspects are portrayed to the young the results are even more dramatic. Reality TV is more potent in its effect on the young as they lack the maturity to detect a set up. (Pozner, 2010)
ReplyDeleteIn the same newspaper on the same day P 44 it on the also reported that TV is Killing Us: - a study by researchers at the University of Qld and published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (Veernam, J.L., 2011) where research found that watching an hour of TV is equivalent to smoking a cigarette and reduced life expectancy by 21.8 minutes. Perhaps as well as parents ensuring children’s sleep patterns are not disrupted by TV they shouldn’t catch up on those programs via the internet either!
Lang, K. (2011, October 23). Taking out the Trash. The Sunday Mail. Brisbane, Qiueensland, Australia.
Pozner, J. (2010). Reality Bites Back; the Troubling Truth about Guilty Pleasures. New York: Avalon Publishing.
Veernam, J.L. (2011, August 15). Retrieved October 25 , 2011, from British Journal of Sports Medicine: http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2011/08/01/bjsm.2011.085662
By Sue
Thanks Sue
ReplyDeleteThe Moral Panics start again! This time, with finger pointing and loud tsk-tsks for bad parenting…
ReplyDeleteGive me a break!
Granted kids need their sleep – but surely, there’s more positives happening from a shared viewing time with the family? Learning is typically very social in nature and children’s social partners are more than likely to be parents and siblings, as much as teachers and classmates. It is also suggested that screen media may occupy the role of “advanced partner scaffolding ... of children’s learning” (Richert, Robb, & Smith, 2011, p. 82). This would be the most likely scenario for such a constructive show as Masterchef.
Considering children’s media experiences, coupled with the necessity for a “healthy media diet,” is a study by Steyer, as cited by O’Neill (Nightingale, 2011). Despite the moral panics usually linked to media, “such popular discourses are counterintuitive in terms of the day-to-day safe encounters with media that most enjoy” (Nightingale, 2011, p. 1).
Thankfully, this article does acknowledge the ability to use other media forms – of promoting convergence, in various ways in which to participate (Nightingale, 2011, p. 430). Offering solutions to this perceived problem including watching the catch-up shows, recording or viewing online; are a step in the right direction. We should be encouraging reality shows of this nature, not slamming them!
Buckingham in 2000, cautions too many TV shows create disinterest and disconnection and therefore disempowerment for young people (Jenkins, 2009). This is not the case with Masterchef. It is a show enjoying all the pluses mentioned in this posting, along with great mastery of the power of timely, constructive feedback and feel-good viewing.
Reality TV, the generic text type of this show, as noted in my own postings of Applying Critical Interpretations to Reality TV and in Sue's TV Villans: Media Panics posting, recognises the value and interaction of TV viewing resulting in both pleasure and education. Considering that a 1999 study suggested only that parents should be made aware of a “potential negative impact of viewing at bedtime,” with the prospect of violent or excessively stimulating shows most likely to disturb (Owens, et al., 1999). An internet search for scholarly articles finds more articles accrediting television viewing to problems of childhood obesity and sleep deprivation more frequently linked to having a television in the bedroom. I would suggest Masterchef the show, is responsible for none of these!
References
Jenkins, H. (2009). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century: The MIT Press.
Nightingale, V. (2011). The Handbook of Media Audiences (Vol. 1): Wiley-Blackwell.
Owens, J., Maxim, R., McGuinn, M., Nobile, C., Msall, M., & Alario, A. (1999). Television-viewing habits and sleep disturbance in school children. Pediatrics, 104(3), e27.
Richert, R. A., Robb, M. B., & Smith, E. I. (2011). Media as social partners: The social nature of young children’s learning from screen media. Child development, 82(1), 82-95.