Effects of Ben 10 on Kids in the Age-Group 5 to 8 Years

"The problem with our society is that our values aren't in the right place. There's an awful lot of bleeding and naked bodies on prime-time networks, but not nearly enough cable television on public programming." --Bauvard, Evergreens Are Prudish Technology has expanded the availability of information through various routes, such as, television, music, movies, internet and magazines. These routes avail children to endless learning venues about any issue that might be of interest to them. Television is a common media mode which is available to most Indian houses. As per the Turnaround Management Association's TAM Annual Universe Update-2010, India now has over 134 million households (out of 223 million) with television sets, of which over 103 million have access to Cable TV or Satellite TV. Kids are exposed to TV at a very young age and they view TV actively or passively "without" any "filtrations," one program after the other. "Unless parents are empowered with expert information, they are ill-equipped to judge which programs to place off-limits for their kids." This retrospective descriptive study explores whether kids and their parents felt the side effects of viewing Ben 10. The sample population of 30 kids in the age-group 5 to 8 years old and their parents participated in the research. Factors examined in the study were psychological effects, health effects, TV contents rating views, etc. The Ben 10 Diet Questionnaire was administered to kids and parents (N = 30) to explore how much time and type of media they consumed as they were in their formation years. Data from the survey established that there are psychological and health effects of Ben 10 on their young kids. Results indicated that parents thought, 12-15 years is the right age-group for the kids to view Ben 10. They also thought that TV owes them "Proper Consumer Advice" related to the programmes they broadcast in form of TV content ratings according to Indian standards. Two appendices include: (1) Ben 10: Alien Force Diet Questionnaire (For Kids); and (2) Ben 10: AF Diet Questionnaire (For Parents).