Document Type
Thesis
First Faculty Advisor
Stanley Baran
Second Faculty Advisor
Susan Baran
Keywords
media literacy intervention; children; media protection
Publisher
Bryant University
Rights Management
CC 4.0 BY-NC-ND
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to explore ways to protect young children from the harmful effects of media as they grow up in a hyper-media world. As a learned skill, media literacy must first be introduced to kids’ lives before they can benefit from its effects. Children are developing their brains, and until the age of 7 they do not have the cognitive capacity to retain and apply media literacy skills. Not having these skills exposes them to harms from advertisements and general content shows, movies, and video games. This exposure leads to issues in their lives such as trouble falling asleep, overstimulation, lack of boredom, and obesity due to overeating and sedentary behavior (Garrison, 2012). There are many risks in children’s increased screen times, and society puts all the problem solving in the hands of parents. As such, this project emphasizes the potentially negative effects of media exposure to children and attempts to determine which media literacy intervention parents find most effective while raising their children. Technology and devices have become progressively more important in daily life; therefore, simply banning children from using them potentially puts them at a cultural and social disadvantage. Displayed are results detailing what parents found effective in regard to raising their children in a hyper-media world.
