How Are Children Exposed? The Fragile State

Humans are predisposed to take care of their offspring. As parents, they often do anything and everything in their power to protect their defenceless child from the ills of this world. The child is fragile and doesn’t understand its workings. Any negative experience has the power to endanger the child for the rest of its life. This being said, children also learn as they grow. If they cried for food as infants, they can now crawl to their mother and tug at her for food at age one and later at around age three, if a parent isn’t around, even walk up to the table and shake it till the food falls to the ground. If at two, they needed a parent to sing them to sleep, at age five many of them have started reading. Sometimes even on their own. Children between five to seven years of age generally, start going to primary school, have their own set of friends and expose themselves to a completely fresh environment where the parent isn’t included. They have in essence, left the nest. Their education and contact with the society has allowed them to learn and practice a new skill: Language (Piaget 2002, p. 23).

Their interactions in today’s day and age, aren’t limited to constants like teachers and peers, who can be met for reassurance, but expand to the media they have access to. Their comprehension abilities, even though limited (Piaget 2002, p. 23)allow them to play video games, watch television till they’re asked to stop and even surf the internet by themselves. Children’s love for modelling these experiences are evident during play (Cherry 2018). According to Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory (Sincero 2018), children’s emotional reactions to the world gets greatly impacted by role models and the environment. These include family, teachers, culture, neighbourhood and even the nation of residence. Media platforms also communicate and exemplify a variety of emotions to children on a day to day basis. And we have evidence that they model it. It must therefore, by the ecological theory, also influence their emotional development. Keeping that in mind, it is common knowledge that catastrophic events in the news, scary creatures in videos and creepy sounds in films have the ability to induce fear and anxiety in children. Children at this age, however, process emotions unlike any adult. Having just attained language skills, they do not have the tools to describe even the most basic sentiments (Ekman 2018). With limited understanding and lack of words to formulate an appropriate reaction, it could become rather distressing. This is not to say that exposure to any negative emotion should unacceptable for the child, balance is key here. Although, barriers in language don’t just lend themselves to emotional vulnerability for children but also hamper emotional development.

The Media Over Time and The Emotions

Media including books, magazines, newspapers, radio, film and the internet have become the storytellers of this world. With a vast and ever evolving variety at hand, both children and parents rely on these for their daily source of information and entertainment. * It all started with the mass production of books in the 15th century*. By the 18th century, a new wave of books solely meant for children with rhymes and illustrations were successfully published by pioneers like Mary Cooper and John Newbery. For the first time, authors made a living by writing for children, and become famous for it; marking the origins of children’s literature, as we know it. Until then books for children were predominantly impassive and instructional. They consisted of spelling books, curriculum and conduct books or were deeply pious. However bland or disciplinary they may seem today, children at the time genuinely enjoyed it. *Since then children’s media has come a long way. According to BBC, children were always at the heart of their public service obligations. One of the earliest radio programmes, Children’s Hour in 1922 was a part of BBC until 1964. By live transmitting the first real children’s television programme ‘For the Children’ in 1946 after the end of WW2, they had changed Sunday afternoons for children. BBChosts content on two dedicated Children’s channels across television, online, interactive TV, and radio at the moment. It now wishes to invest more in children’s budget by 2019-20, especially in online content.

This clearly indicates a shift in the viewing patterns. *So YouTube Kids surely doesn’t exist in a digital vacuum. With BBC, Netflix and Amazon commissioning children’s originalsand mobile applications, the generation is spoilt for choice. However, it has come to attention that YouTube frequently offers ‘nonsensical, endlessly repurposed permutations of pilfered branded content, played against an eerie blend of childish tunes and crude effects. ’*There is media that is filtered and administered by adults and slowly we are heading towards media that may be programmed by artificial intelligence. But not all is lost, as children’s fiction sales recently rose tremendously (16%) due to mainly printed books. *This being said, the new wave of technologies like an open internet, SEO-optimisation, artificial intelligence etcetera have opened children’s entertainment up to a lot of mischief. It is not to say that there are no positive aspects. Video games have proven to improve hand-eye coordination and problem solving skills among children. * And it is definitely not to say that previously available media and content had no shortcomings. Most of the criteria for children’s media available at the moment talk about the setting, the characters, how the story should not let the bad guy win and even the flow of the language. They indicate that violence is generally not accepted and courage gets rewarded. Gender depiction, ethnic representation, and anthropomorphization of nature are agendas that are also being noticed. Even then, there are issues like emotions which have not been dealt with to a great extent. With children spending more time with their books, screens and earphones than ever before*, it only makes sense that there is no compromise in quality. While children need to be exposed to all kinds of emotions, an enraged favourite character or particularly timid one can put a wrong impression at the ripe age. Left to their own devices, literally and figuratively, children often do not grasp the intention of such messages. It then becomes easy for propaganda and advertisements to prey on their innocence. They aren’t media literate yet, but this can be learnt early on with the right questions — How does this make you feel? What are they trying to tell you? What you you enjoy about this?* (1097)

What are they fed?The Then and Now

What do children who have just started practicing the concept of language interact with? At this stage it has the power to mould their future emotional development. How does the content fair against the previous generations’ popular choice or against content from an older medium? Is it too different? What makes a good choice?

Poetry:Poems are often the first step towards literature for children. For the first time, because of language, they imagine another’s point of view, feel someone else’s sentiments. They read it, memorise it and if it truly pulled their heartstrings, recite it several times. Being etched in memory is a great thing and often guides our behaviour towards the world subconsciously, one that guardians shouldn’t take lightly. Knowing that poetry and its mediums have changed drastically over time, it makes sense to compare the classics with the popular poems of today’s generation. Illustrating this gap are two poems, one, an all time favourite from the 19th Century —Owl and The Pussycat* with another very well received poem in 2018 — Baby Shark found on youtube and watched by millions of children everyday. Right off the bat, one can observe that the latter has many more versions than necessary with the most popular raking more than 1. 7 billion views. It is no surprise as majority of parents of 5-7 year olds say their child watches either whole programmes, films, mini-movies, animations or songs on youtube. There is of course, no way to check how many times Owl and The Pussycat was read. Where do these versions come from? They definitely haven’t been through proper checks but know how to lure the child. With a blast of colours andexaggerated expressions, the quality of the production is usually subpar at best. James Bridle (2018)* says that exposing children to automated content is abuse and it resonates. Even though this particular video with 1. 7 million views adheres to all the stipulated guidelines for Youtube Kids, when he says that there is something strange about the people and their fake expressions and that scares and confuses the child one can understand why. The Owl and the Pussycat even though has a more complex language, it allows children to safely imagine and get engrossed. On the contrary, the simple language of baby shark isgreatly offset by the setting. Here, children’s favourite charactersor songs are accompanied by expressions that do not match or scary imagery.

While Youtube wants everyone to share their voice and become a part of the community, it relies heavily on algorithms and the audience to flag inappropriate content on Youtube Kids*Netflix is more selective in their approach for children. The content is assigned a maturity leveleither by Netflix or by a local standards organization. Compared to this, BBC has been cursting and consenting every clip that relates to children’s content going on air. *Peppa pig is currently the most popular show on Netflix for children. In the previous generation, this was true for Thomas the Engine, although its popularity hasn’t dies down yet. While thomas the Engine has always been controversial with regards to its suitability for children, Peppa Pig has also come under the scanner recently. Parents feel that Peppa’s stroppy and the central characters (George, mother, father & grandparents) do not display considered emotions. * According to the Mail she has become a bona fide cultural icon for the generation. Children ought to get substantially influenced by these behaviours.

Some have even compared the series to Thomas the Tank Engine. The Daily Mail alleges that Peppa makes children behave badly, that she needs to be nicer, more like Thomas the Tank engine!* Havingsaid that, it’s not like the parents in the previous generation were too happy with Thomas either. Criticised for sexist, classist and anti-environmentalist attitudes* the trains almost always got into scary accidents. In the initial episodes the show even used terms like ‘stupid’ and ‘shut up’ several times* The levels of anger, envy and jealousy seen in the show can be hard to justify for children who are looking for role models. Recently, the UN noticed the power it had over the generations and Thomas has been going through an overhaul.