2. • New generations are watching less
television than any generation before
them. (Twenge 339)
• Although many blame social media for
the decline in interest among younger
generations in the television industry,
the growing lack of trust in the TV
industry is the true reason why the
interest is declining.
INTRODUCTION
3. • The amount of television watched by children in high
school has unanimously declined over the past 35 years
across race, gender, and social class. (Twenge 339)
• Kids and young adults nowadays watch on average 63%
less television than their prior generations. (Hindman 7)
• As of 2011, television watching has begun to drop faster
than ever.
The Big Picture
4. • A team in Norway discovered that simply introducing television
networks into a town immediately had negative effects on student’s
grades and IQ tests. (Hernæs 34)
• The same team explains that the negative impacts are largest when TV
exposure is before the age of 12 years.” (Hernæs 35).
• The perception that television is a fun, harmless activity no longer
exists among educated audiences.
• While many children and parents alike may still not be conditioned to
consider watching television as a damaging activity to brain
development, few are to claim that regular television watching has
any positive health benefits.
Television and Health
5. ABUSE OF TRUST
• Most television programs are truthful, so they do not
raise any alarm to the watcher. However, this builds up a
blind trust and the situation is ripe for the abuse of power.
• Programs supporting obviously fake stories to find
nonexistent creatures, monsters, or even civilizations
under the pretexts of legit scientific expeditions have
contributed to this situation.
• The effects of spreading misinformation via the
television has turned many potential viewers away.
• A study confirmed that a person’s long held opinion
could be changed after watching a single television
program with a 75.3% success rate. Even if the
information was false. (Ngqangashe)
6. Advertisements
• The unrelenting barrage of advertisements embedded into every
television program is another cause of pain for the audience and
has contributed to the migration away from the television
industry.
• Nowadays YouTube, Netflix, and streaming services provide
shows with very few or no advertisements at all. This captures
the audience away from the television industry.
• The stubbornness to lighten up on the advertisements by the
television industry has only continued to cause potential
customers to spend their time and money elsewhere.
• A study determined that advertisements caused increase stress
among viewers --especially children. (Bahar 31)
7. 1ST COUNTER ARGUMENT
The first claim is that the format of most television shows does not capture the
interest of youth due to outdated plots.
When in reality…
Many shows which originated from the television industry are still enjoyed and
shared among younger generations, the catch is that they are almost exclusively
watched secondhand on streaming services.
The television industry knows how to make quality shows which capture the interest
of all generations, but this alone is not enough to get their viewership.
8. 2ND COUNTER ARGUMENT
The second argument is that new generations prefer smaller amounts of media at a
time. The term “digestible media” has been used to describe this phenomenon
frequently across social media where people prefer to see small, broken pockets of
media. This way the media is easier to enjoy in obscure places, resulting in more
time spent altogether looking at said media.
When in reality…
If this were true, streaming platforms like Netflix would not continue to grow so
large.
If this were true, movies should be hurting even more than the television industry,
but this is simply not the case.
These counter arguments to the decline in the television industry do not explain the
situation of the industry and must be regarded as false.
9. Conclusion:
• Audiences have learned to distrust the television industry as a
whole and have expectedly moved away from the platform.
• Health concerns, annoyance at untruthful television programs,
and disgust at stubborn appliance of advertisements are some
of the main reasons which have caused the decline in interest
among new generations.
• To conclude, the television industry has seen a steady decline
in interest from new generations due to a multitude of mostly
preventable problems within the industry separate from the rise
of social media.
10. Works Cited
Ngqangashe, Yandisa, et al. “An Experimental Investigation of the Effect of Tv Cooking
Show Consumption on Children's Food Choice Behaviour.” International Journal
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Richards, Deborah, et al. “Impact of Social Media on the Health of Children and Young
People.” Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, vol. 51, no. 12, 2015, pp. 1152–
1157.
Schweidel, David A, et al. “Synergy or Interference: The Effect of Product Placement on
Commercial Break Audience Decline.” Marketing Science, vol. 33, no. 6, 2014,
pp. 763–780.
Twenge, Jean M, et al. “Trends in U.S. Adolescents’ Media Use, 1976–2016: The Rise of
Digital Media, the Decline of Tv, and the (near) Demise of Print.” Psychology of
Popular Media Culture, vol. 8, no. 4, 2019, pp. 329–345.
Zhou, Tao. “The Effect of Flow Experience on User Adoption of Mobile TV.” Behaviour &
Information Technology, vol. 32, no. 3, Mar. 2013, pp. 263–272.
Bahar Ozdogan, F., and M. H. Altintas. "Parent-Adolescent Interaction and the Family's Effect
on Adolescent TV Skepticism: An Empirical Analysis with Turkish
Consumers." Young Consumers, vol. 11, no. 1, 2010, pp. 24-35.
Hernæs, Øystein, et al. "Television, Cognitive Ability, and High School Completion." Journal
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MUSE muse.jhu.edu/article/724357.
Hindman, Douglas Blanks, and Kenneth Wiegand. “The Big Three's Prime-Time Decline: A
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Huang, Fali, and Myoung-Jae Lee. “Dynamic Treatment Effect Analysis of Tv Effects on
Child Cognitive Development.” Journal of Applied Econometrics, vol. 25, no. 3,
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Lee, Francis L.F. “The Influence of Family Viewing Preferences on Television Consumption
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