The resonance of Reality shows on our children

Aditi Panda

Today GST and 22^nd Asian Athletics Championship must be garnering less interest among the people of Odisha but the boy next door Satayajit Jena, who recently left a reality show Saregama lil champs, midway and headed home for personal reasons is the talk of the town.

Reality television has spread like wild fire, leaving a massive impact. Parents and children are unsurprisingly getting enticed with the glamour, hype, future prospects and glitter that come as baggage with these shows.

Children who watch reality shows are likely to cultivate wrong notions from the content of these programs, getting distracted from studies as they are more likely to associate wealth, popularity and beauty as factors that give happiness and success.

These values frequently are held in high esteem by many participants as they feel its easy access to name and fame than to take more efforts to become highly qualified and earn peanuts.

The reality shows are getting bigger and consequently its impact is also increasing. Effect of these shows is more on children because they can easily be misled without proper knowledge and understanding. Children who participate in these shows get carried away by seeing them on television and getting a fan following giving them a feeling of elation even though momentary.

“Don’t think reality shows is the only platform where children can exhibit their talent, it is just another platform. Actually the parents want their children to participate in reality shows so that they can get a chance to fulfil their dreams and also hog some limelight.

But in this race to gram limelight they do not realize that when kids get eliminated in reality shows they cannot cope with it and think that , it’s the end of the world”, feels Rachita Thakur a school teacher.

This is what Retd. Prof, Psychology, Utkal University and an active
child activist has to say.” Though reality shows are providing a good platform to the children to publicize their talent, the system of voting is very likely to create a bad impact on their mind.

The organizers and the anchors ask the children to beg for votes. The outcome is less of the talent and more of votes. There is so much hype in winning that losing at any step becomes very stressful.”

Further, the loss of studies and the need to stay away from their residence for a long period of time needs to be assessed. It is easy for a child to lose his/her bearing when exposed such glamour and loss of face. We need to stop the children from turning into trained beggars when they are loaded with talent but need proper nurturing.

So if you want the children to grow in happy and balanced adults inculcate proper values in them and help them use reality shows to showcase their talent and losing the show is not Judgment Day but a learning experience.

(Aditi is a freelance writer and pursues interest in the area of social issues)