Television is the primary, if not the most influential, medium in today's modern society. Television began to develop in the 1950s. It is impossible to simply say that television is a good thing or simply turn the other way and say that it is bad for children. Television contains good and bad information that it transmits to our children. Watching television is one of the most important pastimes in a child or teenager's life. Practically in all homes, whatever the social level, a television is always present in which it sometimes replaces the maternal presence. Television plays the role of an electronic nanny accessible to most children. There is no disagreement that television can entertain, inform and support the child or adolescent, but it can also exert undesirable influences on them. The time children and adolescents spend watching television is deducted from many important activities, such as schoolwork, reading, games, interaction with their families and their social development. In the relationship between television and children, children's learning also exists. But the question is, what kind of learning does television teach our children? And what effect does this have on them? There are many unanswered questions that still plague some of us today when it comes to television viewing and its effects on children. According to the Britannica Encyclopedia Company Merriam-Webster, television is clearly defined as: An electronic system for transmitting transient images of still or moving objects as well as sound over a wire or through space by means of a device that converts light and sound into electrical waves and converts them back into visible light rays and audible sound...... middle of paper ...... surely makes it provide interesting and important information as well as unusual and useless. Television can build children's knowledge as well as destroy it. Works Cited Anderson, Daniel R. and Reed Larson. Early childhood television viewing and adolescent behavior: The recontact study. Boston, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2001. Gunter, Barrie, and Jill L. McAleer. Children and television. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 1997. Merriam-Webster. "television." Merriam Webster. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/television (accessed February 18, 2014). Schramm, Wilbur. Television in our children's lives. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1961. Zuckerman, Diana M., Dorothy G. Singer, and Jerome L. Singer. “Television watching, reading to children, and related classroom behavior.” » Communication Journal 30, no. 1 (1980): 166-174.