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Television - Special Issues for Young Children
Parents of young children need to actively manage and control TV viewing in the home. Children need a variety of activities for healthy development and television can be a fun and educational part of a child's daily routine, if managed properly.
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Television - Special Issues for Teens
Television viewing generally drops during adolescence as young people start to spend more time socializing, doing schoolwork, and using other media, such as music, video games, computers and the Internet.
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The Good Things About Video Games
Good-quality video games offer lots of benefits to children and teens.
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The Concerns About Video Games
The video game sector is the fastest growing entertainment industry and second only to music in profitability. Global sales of video game software hit almost $17 billion U.S. in 2011. [1]
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Video Games - Special Issues for Girls
Sixty-two per cent of Canadian gamers are male:[1] and in a market targeted primarily at males, games that appeal to girls can be hard to find. Generally girls aren't interested in the violent "first person shooter" games favoured by boys, and many of the girl-specific games promote stereotypical interests such as cooking and babysitting. (Industry representatives claim these topics are chosen based on their surveys of what female games want.)
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Video Games - Special Issues for Young Children
Throughout the elementary years, parents are the main gatekeepers for their children. As such, they need to be actively involved in their children’s video game playing – selecting the games, managing how much time children spend playing, and talking to them about the values in the games they like.
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Video Games - Special Issues for Teens
For most teens, playing video games is just another recreational activity they enjoy with friends. The concern is when video game playing becomes an addictive or isolating activity.
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Television - Overview
Most of us have happy memories of watching television with our families when we were young. But what was once a simple shared pastime has become an increasingly complex—and sometimes problematic part of modern family life.