ASSIGNMENT OF: MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY

 NAME: TAQWA AHMED

 CLASS: (BS-PART III) 

TOPIC: ‘PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTH EFFECTS OF WATCHING T.V ON AUDIENCES’.

 ASSIGNMENT OF: MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY 

 DEPARTMENT OF MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS

Topic: Physical and Psychological Health related effects of watching T.V on audience.

INTRODUCTION

Philo Taylor Farnsworth in 1927 in San Francisco invented a source of communication which is called T.V, is a means of entertainment, transferring of knowledge and information throughout the world. It has change the lifestyle of peoples in a way that they have adopt different kind of dressing sense by watching other people of the world and has always motivate us to do the things which we may have never thought about. However, it’s the invention of a human being so it has both positive and negative impacts on both the Mind and the Health of the audience. Television in modern world has become a voice for voiceless and a means of delivering information to the receiver but it all depend on us that how we are using this tool? And how much we use it in each day? It really affects our Physical and Psychological being if we are not using it correctly. 

Psychological effects of watching T.V

As we know that T.V is broadcasting variety of programs 24/7, which include NEWS, Drama serials, Movies these all things have different kind of genre like love, crime, sex, violence and so on. These programs are directly affecting our Mind and trying to change our way of perspective of different things like:

Positive impacts: 

The positive impacts of watching T.V on human mind or human psyche are:

• It diverts the mind. Whenever we are in a situation like we are anxious about something or afraid of something so, television simply diverts our mind and make us forget the current situation.

 • Television, use for escape: Most of the people claim that they use television to escape from reality and a means of relaxation.

 • Entertainment: Human mind has a need of doing different kind of thing either for relaxation or for entertainment, so television plays a main role if we talk about entertainment. 

• Mental development: Educational television programs can have long-term positive effect on the mind of a viewer. Because it motivate us to study further and to fulfill our goals. By watching different kind of learning television programs on can get better ideas of achieving knowledge and to experiment different things which he/she can’t directly learn from the books.

Negative Impacts:

However if we just think about the negative effects on watching television on the Psychology of audience, the behavioral change, anxiety, crime, depression and many things are there to discuss.

 • Effect of violent content on human mind: Watching violence based programs on television may cause depression, anxiety and fear. This can also affect the mind in a way that a person can get violent too, and can imitate the acts which are shown in the T.V programs.

• Imagination: Research shows that excessive use of television effect our way of thinking. Those who watch television more have chances of less imagination power.

 • Less exercise of brain: when you consume most of your time in watching television your capability of thinking lessen because your brain perform less exercise than a normal healthy brain does.

 • Increment of emotions: you develop different mood swings and become more sensitive and get emotionalize on even little things.

 • Change in attitude: By watching T.V you try to adopt all those things which are trending right now and it really changes your behavior, your attitude to different things. First you don’t want to get involve in family matters, then your try to avoid your parents too and then you just get addicted to the television and want to pay all the attention to television.

Physical effects of watching T.V 

Not only our mind but our body is also very much effected by the excessive use of television. As I’m living in a society where the people are very much obsessed with watching television, I can tell you many drawbacks relating it. First of all your health is very much effected by the over usage of television.

 Positive impacts: 

• To some peoples watching T.V is the happiest time of the day because it really helps them to avoid toxic relationships so when you start to get involved in watching television you forget all your painful memories.

• Television is helpful for the person who are always in social isolation it encourage them to faux relationship with their favorite characters or idols to deflect loneliness. 

 Negative Impacts:

 • Health Issue: If you’re daily routine of watching television is more than two hours then it effect you Eye-sight mainly, it makes you more obese, and there can be risk of heart disease and type two diabetes

 • Television makes you dumb: It is a fact that television hinder our ability to think. The way it is providing us the information, opinions so fastly so we have loosen our ability to analyze the things critically. We can be misinformed or manipulate by it. 

• Wastage of time: we already waste our time in watching T.V so then we can’t even do the house chores and exercise for better health. 

Conclusion: 

There are both positive and negative impacts of watching television on human body and mind. So we must have to balance all the things, we must watch T.V in limit in order to balance our daily life routine

Assignment of Media Psychology

 Taqwa Ahmed

 BS part III 

 Assignment of Media Psychology 

 Q# What are the psychological effects of electronic media on viewers in controlling epidemic Corona virus particularly in Pakistan? Elaborate answer with example. 

Right now, the world is battling a coronavirus epidemic. It started in December 2019, when a group of people from China’s northern Hubei province developed an unexplained pneumonia-like condition. It spread over all the country of China like a wild fire and it impacts the health and economy of China and other country too, like Pakistan, India and Russia. Pakistan has decided to close the Chaman border with Afghanistan for at least one week to check the spread of virus from the neighboring country. Strict precautionary measures have also been put in place around borders areas to stop the spread of the virus. Isolation wards have also been made in hospitals. On the Taftan-Iran border, Pakistan has already setup a 100-bed hospital, where people coming from Iran are being screened and quarantined, if needed. As a result, social media became both an indispensable source of vital information and a fertile ground for dangerous rumour-mongering, with claims of equal shock value but varying truth making big waves across the world. The WHO Director-General even stated: “We’re not just fighting an epidemic; we’re fighting an infodemic.” This situation is the testament to the raw power of social media, and a sign of how much we achieved when it comes to curtailing the spread of dangerous lies online. WHO and other public health organizations also use social media to inform the public about the outbreak, and control the panic. Of course, it doesn’t mean that misinformation is not being circulated among social media users. For many people, conspiracy theories are a natural response to the senseless cruelty of this crisis. They offer clarity and an opportunity to blame someone for the havoc. So it’s not unreasonable that a number of dangerous conspiracy theories ‘blew up’, offering interesting, albeit completely incorrect ways of viewing the situation. Some claim that the virus is a biological weapon, created by either the US (to kill Chinese people) or China (to kill Americans). Some claim that the outbreak was orchestrated by big tech – to undermine China’s status as the world capital of high-tech manufacturing. This will allow us to show how awareness can reduce the number of individuals infected during an epidemic, As coronavirus became a trending topic, many people tried to profit off its popularity in ways that couldn’t have been predicted. Several teen bloggers pretended to be infected to elicit shock from their peers, pity from their online followers, and, most importantly, clicks. Stunts like these cannot be controlled as well as the claims of international conspiracies, but they’re still largely illegal — and the perpetrators are likely to face consequences for their acts of sowing panic on purpose. According to me the psychological impacts on Pakistani in controlling epidemic in Pakistan are: As we talk about the impacts on people who are engaged in surfing social media platforms, then the first thing to notice is that the Epidemic has spread fear among the people because social media is informing us about each and everything like what happened to the people who has Corona and how they die? And what are the symptoms of Corona? These all fears are causing turmoil among they people and softhearted people are not brave enough to read or hear these kind of things so in that way social media is spreading fear among the people in the Epidemic like Corona virus. And the other thing is that social media is also providing us information from all over the world so we are already aware enough to handle this situation. So when the first case in Pakistan was heard, Government of Sindh already tried to isolate the people and whole Pakistan did quarantine themselves in March this year. So this is the positive point of having social media because through this we are one step forward in tackling this situation. As we know that social media is the source of spreading information so people are engaged in forwarding the messages like how to wash your hands and make the environment clean around yourself. And how to manage the situation and how to isolate yourself. This is how social media is helpful in controlling epidemic Corona virus in Pakistan.