Television is the primary, if not the most influential medium in today's modern society. Television began to expand in the 1950s. It is impossible to simply say that television is good for you or simply turn in the opposite direction and say that it is bad for children. Television contains good and bad information that it transmits to our children. Watching TV is one of the most important hobbies in the life of a child or teenager. In practically all homes, regardless of social level, television is always present, which sometimes replaces the maternal presence. Television plays the role of an electronic nanny accessible to most children. There is no disagreement on the fact that television can entertain, inform and accompany the child or adolescent, but it can also exert unwanted influences on them. The time children and adolescents spend watching television is taken away from many important activities, such as school work, reading, games, interaction with family and social development. Children's learning also exists in the relationship between television and children. But the question is: what kind of learning does television teach our children? And what effect does it have on them? There are many unanswered questions that still torture some of us today regarding television viewing and its effects on children. According to the Britannica Encyclopedia Company Merriam-Webster, television is clearly defined as: An electronic system of transmitting transient images of stationary or moving objects together with sound over a wire or in space by an apparatus which converts light and sound into electrical waves and converts them back into visible light rays and audible sound...... middle of paper ...... certainly does provide interesting and important as well as unusual and unnecessary information. Television can build children's knowledge just as much as it can destroy it. Works Cited Anderson, Daniel R., and Reed Larson. Early childhood television viewing and adolescent behavior: The recontact study. Boston, Massachusetts: 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, California: Stanford University Press, 1961. Zuckerman, Diana M., Dorothy G. Singer, and Jerome L. Singer. "Television viewing, children's reading, and related classroom behavior." Journal of Communication 30, n. 1 (1980): 166-174.