The Importance of Censorship

The Importance of Censorship

As new technologies evolve and become a part of our daily lives, so do television shows and what people are allowed to view on a regular basis. Censorship, a word that seems to be causing quite some controversy over certain people may not be such a bad idea. As America has seen, a countless amount of people have been known to complain about censorship on television. Although this seems to be a problem to some, maybe the real question to be asked is, is there enough censorship of television? Many families agree that certain rated R movies should not be shown to young children and only certain shows

should be censored to an extent, yet they do not see the significant effect that regular television shows really have on their children.As a child grows, more and more statistics are proving that they are being exposed to too many shows that should be censored. Many studies have concluded that young children are most affected by what they see on television (Dritz, Russel 1996). For example, a child that watches a cartoon with a lot

of violence or tunes into their parents favorite soap opera might find an increasingly amount of exposure to violent acts and sexual content. Children are very vulnerable to such influences and often do not know the difference between right and wrong and the difference between reality and fantasy (Dritz, Russel 1996). As the years go on and television seems to be too censored to most, studies have continued to prove the increasing numbers of children associated with violence and sexual behavior. Although a seemingly older statistic, the Neilson Index averaged American children to watch 18,000 television murders before he or she graduated from high school (Tucker, Larry A. 1988). Could this be a reason for an increasing amount of murders and violent acts among children today?