Argument Analysis Article Review Sample

Watching television by children and teenagers has brought a controversial discussion on the effects it has in childhood development. This has further been researched by many scientist giving opposing results hence leaving parents in trepidation on which side to take. The scientists have come up with opposing opinions that have been agreed by people depending on individual point of perception. Seth Mullins in his article An Argument against Television for Children provides strong and concretive evidence as to why watching television is bad for children. Conversely, Samir Vermani, M.D convinces his readers that television has no bad effect on children in his article TV Can Improve Kids Behavior, Study Finds.
Seth Mullin is a writer since high school, on one hand, he believes that life itself is our teacher and environment can dictate our behavior. On the other hand, Samir Vermani is a health professional. Both the authors display convincing views on the effects of TV to children. Seth brings general view of this issue and does not convince people as when it is bad. There are educational programs that when watched by children educate them and improve their way of understanding hence Samir’s article TV Can Improve Kids Behavior in this case comes out real and convincing than Seth’s article.
TV improve kids behavior, Samir’s article is consistent throughout the article argument. He makes it clear that TV becomes educational and can positively improve childhood development when educational channels are watched. He is trying to convince both parents and kids that when good channels are maintained which is possible, TV becomes an additional source of information besides school work. He says “all television is educational”. But the question is: what is it teaching” this means that television is educative, but may educate different things. Here, the author tries to catch the attention of the parents and teach them if they put educational TV programs, it is beneficial to children. Hence, he tries to persuade them that TV is good for children.
In his first view he says that, the more children are engaged in watching TV, the more they are likely to be aggressive, gain criminal conviction, and even have personality disorder. This gives Samir a good platform to convince the readers that when you allow bad channels then the children may adopt bad characters they are seeing. No parent would want his child to go astray, they should embrace good programs and condemn bad ones. He tries to counter attack Seth by educating parents not to entertain bad channels while watching.
Additionally, he tells readers that it is not the quantity but quality. This is the relationship between the time taken watching TV and the piece of information being watched. A child can take 20 minutes watching porn related channel, while he can still take the whole day watching a documentary on world war or western revolution. He is just counter attacking Seth’s point of minimizing time taken while watching TV since one can take the smallest time watching total destructive information. Hence time taken is innocuous but information is important.
Samir’s information is evidenced by the research done on 820 families of which half of the family was experimental and half was the control. No change was made on the experimental group and after six months, it was noted that experimental group were more social than the control group. Therefore, it was concluded that children do imitate the environment, they do bad things or good according to what they see hence parents should take this advantage by giving children the permission to watch educative programs since just turning off the TV is not the solution. This is a persuasive statement that would change the mind of people who were opposing Samir. Throughout the argument, Samir has maintained a professional tone with no abusive language used.
In the article Argument against TV for Children, Seth is consistent in his argument by defending his point. He argues that the time taken to watch TV would have been made important when subjected to learning activities. He put general view of watching TV as an act that transforms pure minds to waste. Seth is a writer who has experienced hard times in his childhood. Therefore, his stand on this issue can be understood. It can be viewed that, he thinks this way because of his belief that environment dictates people’s life. His audiences here are both parents and children.
In his view, he says that watching bad channels by children makes them adapt to those acts. He also believes that young children primarily learn through repetition and imitation, and being enclosed to a bad environment supports undesirable acts and behaviors. However, he does not say what if the children and parent deceit from watching bad programs. This is a way of making the reader believe that his opinion is correct without evaluating the opponent’s point of views. That is the main weakness of the article as said by Samir. Seth too maintains good and professional tone with no abusive languages throughout his argument.
He brings a strong point on hobbies encouragement which could counter attack Samir’s views. Interaction is very important in childhood development. This is enhanced by active participation in the environment. He says, rather than sitting down to watch fiction, children should embrace actual performance of this activities. This is not just socially beneficial, but also good health wise. In this content, Seth draws attention of readers who actually knows how physical activities should be implemented in children and if they can make their mind on this issue if they had not decided. Samir seems not to counter attack this point since it has strong logics in it.
In comparison, the two authors have strong and substantive evidence to persuade readers. Seth does not give the outcome if children have to watch educative programs. He looks at a wider view of watching TV, while Samir explains that too much watching TV has positive or negative impacts on children depending on the program. While Seth believes that time taken affects children, Samir believes it is the content that matters. Both of them at a certain point believed that environment affects the development of children in different ways. Hence, by using concrete facts and evidence, Samir’s article is more effective than Seth’s article
In conclusion, both articles presented strong evidence to support their point of views. However, Samir provided evidence based on a two sides point of view. The fact that he says Watching TV has got an effect depending on what programs one is watching, overcomes Seth’s general point of view. Both of them talk about time, imitation, and repetition as ways in which environment determines a child’s character. Samir’s article, TV Can Improve Kids’ Behaviors, Study Finds is more persuasive and educating than Seth’s argument against TV for children.