Many modern children spend a great deal of time sitting in front of a television

or computer screen. This is extremely harmful to their development. Therefore,

parents should strictly limit the time that children spend in this way.
To what extent do you agree or disagree?
It is generally accepted that spending too much time in front if the TV harms childrens
development. Therefore, in my opinion, parents should by all means limit their
childrens TV and computer screen time, especially while they are younger.
Watching TV or using a computer can be addictive, even for adults. Parents must
prevent their children from developing bad habits, like spending a lot of their time in
front of the TV, early on. Not only should parents strictly limit their childrens' screen
time, they also need to be role models. Certainly, younger children will need more
guidance, while teenagers can be given more responsibility in how they spend their
time.
Moreover, watching TV is a passive way to spend time with no social interaction. While
this point is not so much about computers, physical exercise and playing with other
children are essential activities for a healthy development. Spending a lot of time in
front of computer or TV screens limits a child time for such activities.
Especially younger children can not concentrate for an extended time span without
breaks. Watching TV or playing computer games for many hours can hurt their ability to
concentrate on their homework or a book later on. So even if the content watched is
age adequate and educational watching it for too long can be harmful for a child.
All things consideres, there are many reasons why parents are well advised to monitor
their childrens use of TV and computers closely. Especially younger children should be
guided to spend their time in active and healthy ways.
==================================================
IELTS buddy
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Corrected Version:
It is generally accepted that spending too much time in front of the TV harms childrens
development. Therefore,in my opinion, parents should by all means limit their hildrens
TV and computer screen time, especially while they are younger.

Watching TV or using a computer can be addictive, even for adults. Parents must
prevent their children from developing bad habits, like spending a lot of their time in
front of the TV, early on. Not only should parents strictly limit their childrens' screen

time, they also need to be role models. Certainly, younger children will need more
guidance, while teenagers can be given more responsibility in how they spend their
time.
Be careful - in this paragraph you are not giving enoughspcific reasons WHY
they should limit their viewing. Instead you are giving solutions as you
mention that parents 'must prevent this bad habit early on' and they should be
'role models because children need more guidance'. These are not actually
answering the question.
Moreover, watching TV is a passive way to spend time with no social interaction. While
this point is not so much about computers, physical exercise and playing with other
children are essential activities for healthy development. Spending a lot of time in front
of computer or TV screens limits a child time for such activities.
Especially In particular, younger children can not concentrate for an extended time
span without breaks. Watching TV or playing computer games for many hours can hurt
their ability to concentrate on their homework or a book later on. So even if the content
watched is age adequate and educational, watching it for too long can be harmful for a
child.
All things considered, there are many reasons why parents are well advised to monitor
their childrens use of TV and computers closely, especially younger children who need
to be guided to spend their time in active and healthy ways.
==================================================
FURTHER COMMENTS

Your grammar and vocabulary are fine, as is your organization.

Just be careful to make sure you are answering the question as your first paragraph
does not appear to do this.
Especially = this is used to begin a phrase after a comma, not in the way you are
using it.
Thanks

Comments for Task 2 IELTS Sample

Writing:
Children and TV
Average Rating

Click here to add your own comments

Jan 08, 2013

children and TV
by: ha
this is a great change for learner

Sep 11, 2013

Computer and TV Exposure by Children

by: Niner X
New generation of youngsters, especially
children under school and pubertal age groups
are television and computer addicts, evidenced
by long hours of time being with those modern
technologies. Indeed, this social trend is
alarming since it could affect their social,
mental, and physiologic functions. Along with
this, I strongly believe that parents should
impose specific discipline appertaining to the
length of time their children utilize those
gadgets.
Irrefutably, computers and televisions are
informative, entertaining, and enjoyable not only
to children but for adult as well. Diverse
advantages have been brought to the modern
world because of new media as those, however,
long hours of time spent in front of television
and computer screens would mean disturbing
effects to children. For one, health issues due to
radiation and prolonged sitting could lead to eye,
back and posture problems for these young
audiences. Similarly, it could minimize their
time to interact with families and friends, thus,
deterring with their social life.
That said, parents being the major guardians of
these kids should rigorously set specific periods
of exposure to televisions and computers.
Basically, an active role is essential as parents
must create and innovate alternative activities on
how their children can spend their time with
pleasure. They can guide the children to learn
time management and effective self-discipline.
Similarly, parents can institute some programs to

encourage children to do other activities, away

from those technologies, accompanied by gifts,
rewards, and praises as ways of appreciation and
recognition of accomplishments. Most
importantly, parents must serve as role models,
practicing what they preach as old adage say,
as children tend to imitate what they see from
elder ones.
Conclusively, using computers and viewing
through television over an extensive period of
time is an observable worrisome trend, among
children. Parents should never leave this issue
unattended, thus, must enforce due time restraint
before it turns to be their childrens unbreakable
habit.
_______
38 minutes

Oct 09, 2013

A similar question and response. Please give

your comments & potential band score.
by: Abdullah Al Shahwani
Children today spend more time watching
television than they did in the past. Describe
some of the advantages and disadvantages of
television for children.

Today's children have an unprecedented access

to technological devices, primarily, television,
computers and video games. This intense
exposure to gadgets of all kinds can have farreaching effects on minds and bodies of these
children. On one hand, unlimited amount of
information is in their easy reach, on another,
they are missing out on healthier and more social
activities.
Television is, perhaps one of the most integral
parts of the connected world we are living in.
Having access to television provides children
with the most diverse knowledge and builds in
them the ability to investigate things in a broader

perspective. For example, channels like National

Geographic, ignites an interest and teaches
children to respect the Mother Nature,
simultaneously, motivating them to be more
caring towards it. Moreover, television is a
medium that can be easily monitored by the
parents as opposed to outdoor activities where
children are on their own.
Despite the benefits television has to offer, there
are significant shortcomings as well. Firstly,
viewing television for longer durations can limit
the physical activities of children, which is
detrimental to their health. Secondly, it degrades
their social skills making them isolated and
enclosed. Lastly, apart from all the informative
content, television does contain certain
undesirable material like sex and violence,
which the children may come across.
To conclude, like any other human invention,
television possesses both positive and negative
features. It is, therefore, upto the parents to be
vigilant and properly police their children's daily
television time.

Jan 30, 2014

Very good
by: Anonymous
This is a really good site. I love it great contents.
Thanks ielts buddy.

Apr 22, 2014

children and tv
by: tia
nowadays technology become increasingly
independence in our lives.we can see that every
day the children cannot escape from the
television.It is true that almost activities of the
children spend their times for watching
television.Thus,i strongly agree that parents
should strictly limit the time that children spend
in this way because the children can get

antisocial in their future and effect their bad

behavior.
To begin with,it is true that the television brings
their children get more knowledge.they can
know and learn something new information from
the television.Meanwhile,many programs like
cartoon that the children prefer to watch
television than they go outside to play with their
friends.For example,when they watch the
television then they do not care people around
them.They are very enjoyed it due to interesting
the programs.It makes them become lazy to
interact with each other.Hence,parents should
strictly limit the time for children because they
must play more outside even they must study at
home to do homework or other things that are
useful to them.If they cannot stop to watch tv
and they do not want to interact with their
friends,they would antisocial in their future.
furthermore,due to many programs on
television,many things that children may not to
watch such as violence or adults program.it
makes children to bring bad influence.

May 03, 2014

Interior
by: Anonymous
Children need parents care to deal with this
beautiful life . Children spend more time in
doing deferent kind of activities such as
watching tv and playing electronic games than
siting with their parents .so in this assay i will
look at this issue from deferent argent before
giving my own point of view .

May 08, 2014

children spend more time in front of t.v

by: haroon urd
It is hard to say is the television good or bad
because there is many both advantages and

disadvantages of it. I will try to mention some of

them.
I think, the most important advantage of
television is that it is a huge source of
information's, knowledge and entertainment.
There are plenty of channels with different
topics. It provides every kind of information's
and entertainment: Great films, shows,
documentaries, science programs, cartoons and
so on. You can watch the newest information's
from all the world, it helps you to be up-to-date.
You only have to turn on your tv-set and you can
get some news. Sometimes it is very convenient.
Watching television can be also great way to
spend a free time. There are some really
interesting programs about for example our
hobbies. It can by also good way to spend
evening, watching curious films.
From the other hand, there are also many
disadvantages on watching television. It become
to be very popular and common. Almost
everyone has his own tv-set. People spend to
much time watching stupid programs and shows.
They become a slaves of 21' black box. You
can't talk with them about anything isn't
connected with television. Their life is depend
on tv-schedule. The whole families watches
television eating dinner, sapper, spending their
free time in this way. Instead of going to the
park, wood, to the lake or for a trip.
Nowadays there is many violence on tv. Jung
children are watching full of violence and
brutality cartoons and movies. They spend
whole day siting in front of screen. Every tvstation broadcasts many commercials, the
movies are being interrupted and we are
watching commercials for few minutes. We also
have to single out the really interesting programs
and movies because there is many stupid and
boring programs.
I have show only a few features of television. Of

course it is only a small part. Watching

television can give us many positives things like
news, entertainment and knowledge but it can by
also dangerous. I watch very rarely television,
generally only eating my breakfast or sapper. I
am not interested in information's from the
world and I have much better ways to spend my
free time...of course if I have it.

Television Addiction Children

Childrens Television Addiction
A lot of people do not realize the seriousness of television addiction. According to Television
Addiction Is No Mere Metaphor written by Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2002), each
person all over the world spends three hours a day watching television for half of their own leisure
time.
That means the total amount of the time for watching television is the same as 9 years to spend their
time to watch TV if one lives up to 75. A more scary research is 40% of adult respondents and 70%
of teenagers think that they watch television too much. Moreover, 10 percent of adults think
themselves as TV addicts.
Is this fact not surprising? Have you ever thought, I think I am addicted to television? When I was
young, I did not consider myself as a television addict. If I did not have anything to do, I would have
seen television for 6 through 7 hours in a day. At that time, I already knew I spent too much time
watching television, but I did not care about it. However, as time went by, I entered high school, and
I needed to study to pass the College Entrance Exam in Korea. Unfortunately, whenever I was
studying, I could not take care of my desire to watch television.

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I tried to get away from the television and set time for viewing the TV. However, it was not that easy.
The habit from the young age made me stick to this bad habit. That is why I am interested in
television addiction, and why I want to know much about the television addiction. Like this, the
impact from viewing television too much would affect not only childrens development in a variety of
ways but also until they become adults.
Above all, before getting started, we should make sure about the definition of addiction. Although
there are a variety of definitions for addiction, all the meanings are the same. Of all, I chose the
definition which is proposed by Lamai, Addiction is a habitual repetition of excessive behavior that a
person is unable or unwilling to stop, despite its harmful consequences (2006).
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People can be addicted to drugs physically while people can be addicted to gambling
psychologically. However, because the term television addiction is not precise and can be different
in various situations, there are a variety of perspectives on television addiction. Nevertheless, the
criteria of substance dependence, which are defined by psychologists and psychiatrists formally,
decide as an addiction if someone spends their time using the substance too much, tries to use
more than ones intended amount, gives up to do social, family or occupational activities, more
important thing than using it, and shows withdrawal symptoms when one stops using it (Kubey and
Csikszentmihalyi, 2002).
These phenomena are shown on television addicts as well. Because of the desire to watch TV,
people who call themselves an addict appear to have all of these phenomena. Therefore, desire to
watch television continuously can tell that it is obviously an addiction.
Media has warned the impact of television, especially the impact of television to children. It is very
unhealthy to children because children are in the progress of developing their brain and body.
According to Dr. Youngs assertion, All of the most crucial brain development of a child occurs
before age 4.(Morello, 2002, p.44). Hence, the effect from television addiction can lead children to
become passive and try not to think creatively. Like this, it would affect in a variety of ways not only
in childhood but also in the childs entire life.
First of all, the impact from television addiction is directly related to childrens attention span. A
surprising fact is Only 14 percent of teens who watch six or more hours of TV daily achieve reading
proficiency by grade 12 (Daines, 2007). Somewhere you might hear that television is a strong
stimulus clog. This is because television contains a great deal of rapid-fire stimulation. (Morello,
2002, p.44).
Therefore, their brain would be trained by this level of stimulation. If they do not see enough of this
level of stimulation, they are unable to be affected by the stimulation and they try to find more
extreme stimulation for them. Finally, children cannot concentrate on something longer. In contrast, if
children are interested in playing sports, games and crayons, they can improve cognitive abilities
and develop crucial thinking (Daines, 2007).
Secondly, the time for being with family and interacting with friends will be shortened. As society
becomes modernized, all of family members become busy, so they can be together in only dinner

time. However, television even makes this time shortened. When the TV is turned on, the familys
eyes would glue to the TV without expression, so that they will not chat with their story. Furthermore,
studies show that the more TV preschoolers watch, the less well socialized they are in the first grade
(Daines, 2007). This is because they spend their time watching instead of playing with friends.
Thirdly, the biggest problem is the obesity. Children obesity is getting a bigger issue. Television
addiction is a lot involved in this issue as well. Have you ever heard of couch potatoes? This word
came from the expression of the person who always lies in the couch and watches TV. Likewise,
think about the situation when you are watching television. What are you doing? You might be eating
a snack. That is the key point of becoming obesity.
There is the statistics related to this fact in TV and the Internet: Fattening for Teens? Dr, Susanna
Kautiainen and colleagues at the University of Tampere, Finland surveyed a nationally
representative sample of 721 teens 14 to 18 years of age to see if the time they spent on the Internet
was tied to obesity or overweight. The result was that those who spent more time watching TV were
more often overweight and obese than those who spent less time watching TV. The time without
moving makes people obesity and overweight (2004).

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Fourthly, watching TV without caution can become childrens guideline how to grow. That means TV
can ruin the childhood as a certain period in human development. If children constantly are exposed
by TVs harmful situations such as sex and violence, they take it granted that it is not a problem to
live a fast life in youth and to kill people for justice. This is because children are not satisfying their
knowledge to distinguish from this destructive aspect of television (Video Age International, 2001, pp.
2-3). If you unguardedly let children watch TV, it could lead children to fail in childhood.
Then, why are we addicted to television? The origin of the addiction arises from boredom, and
television can supply your demand. As soon as you turn on the TV, you can directly feel relaxed and
cozy. However, according to electroencephalograph (EEG) studies which are laboratory experiments
to monitor the brain waves, skin resistance or heart rate of people watching television, the result is
astonishing.

When participants turn off the TV, their feeling of relaxation and coziness suddenly disappears while
the feeling of passiveness and lowered alertness continue. After participants turn off the TV, they
somehow feel television makes their energy dry up and they are hard to concentrate compared to
before. In contrast, participants can feel happy and improvement in mood after playing sport (Kubey
and Csikszentimihalyi, 2002). Moreover, in Television Anonymous (2001), Noise and
Companionship can be the reason why people are addicted as well.
Then, what kinds of solution to get over television addiction? There are a lot of alternatives. However,
above all, recognizing your habit and accepting is a top priority. After this, firstly set time limits. It
should not watch more than two hours on qualified TV program. Also, under three year children
should not be in front of TV because the first two to three years of life are critical periods for the
development of young childrens brains.(Christakis, 2004) Secondly, this is the most important thing.
Television should not be placed in childrens bedroom.
Thirdly, put the TV and remote control which could not come into sight. Fourthly, do not use the TV
to look after baby. Instead, do household chores with children and give them an opportunity to help.
Fifthly, listen to favorite music or the radio as background noise. Lastly, set a good example.
Because parents and guardians are usually a childs most important role model, limiting your own TV
viewing and choosing programs carefully through the lives of TV characters (Daines, 2007).
In conclusion, the desire which wants to watch TV definitely should be seen as addiction. Nowadays,
television addiction is becoming a big issue. The amount of time people viewing TV on average
cannot say it is not the astonishing fact. I am sure that the number of television addicts is gradually
increasing.
Therefore, people should make an effort to diffuse the fact that the amount of television addict is
increasing and it is really bad for children because television addiction have an opportunity to
shorten childrens attention span, to narrow time with family and friends, to result in obesity, and to
be a guideline during development. Therefore, keeping watching television incautiously should be
reconsidered.

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