Television Violence and Its Effects on Young Children
What has the world come to these days? It often seems like everywhere you look, violence rears its ugly head. We see it in the streets, back alleys, school, and even at home. Out of these three, at home is a major source of violence on a daily basis. Many peoples' living rooms there serve as an outlet for violence that often goes unnoticed. It is the television, and the children who view it are often pulled into its realistic world of violent scenes with sometimes devastating results.
Much research has gone into showing why children are so mesmerized by this big glowing box and the action that takes place on it. Research shows that it is definitely a major source of violent behavior in children. The research proves time and time again that aggression and television viewing do go hand in hand. The truth about television violence and children has been shown. Some people are trying to fight this problem. Others are ignoring it and hoping it will go away. Still others don't even seem to care. However, the facts are undeniable. The studies have been carried out and all the results point to one conclusion: Television violence causes children to be violent and the effects can be life-long.
The information can't be ignored. Violent television viewing does affect children. The effects have been seen in a number of cases. In New York, a 16-year-old boy broke into a cellar. When the police caught him and asked him why he was wearing gloves he replied that he had learned to do so to not leave fingerprints and that he discovered this on television. In Alabama, a nine-year-old boy received a bad report card from his teacher. He suggested sending the teacher poisoned candy as revenge as he had seen on television the night before. In California, a seven-year-old boy sprinkled ground-up glass into the lamb stew the family was to eat for dinner. These are certainly startling examples of how television can affect children. It must be pointed out that all of these situations were directly caused by children watching violent television.
Not only does television violence affect the child's youth, but it can also affect his or her adulthood.
According to the article, Violence in the Media, written by the APA, it provides information on how ferocious television episodes can affect a child’s senses, feelings, and attitude. To be more specific, it can make them become numb, frightened, and more pugnacious due to the amount of violent TV they watch. Furthermore, according to the same article, the APA also wrote, “By observing these participants into adulthood, Huesmann and Eron found that the ones who'd watched a lot of TV violence when they were 8 years old were more likely to be arrested and prosecuted for criminal acts as adults.” Psychologists L. Rowell Huesmann and Leonard Eron held a study that concluded that the result of watching violent television can lead to jail and criminal actions. This will also cause a child to become more aggressive and therefore will become a nefarious person. All in all, the American Psychological Association decided that violent television can shape a child’s disposition. In fact, it can also encourage a child to execute bad deeds and crimes when they become
...tegy, which is highly promoted in television and cinema. While the state of the mind and family life are both crucial contributors to the actions of children, it is wrong to rule out the influence of violent television programs. The thoughts in our minds turn into the words that we speak and the actions we imitate. If these thoughts are created by the violent images seen on TV, then the words we speak will become hateful and cruel and our actions will cause harm to those around us. That is why television should be held moderately responsible for the violent actions of children. They are promoting negative influences which in return will swarm the young, developing minds of children and create adults with immoral actions and emotions towards violent situations.
Through movies, talk shows, cartoons and more, our television screens have plainly become littered with violence. According to The National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center (2008) “61 percent of television programs contain some violence, and only 4 percent of television programs with violent content feature an ‘antiviolence’ theme” (para. 1).
The media, specifically television, has become more and more violent, in not all too subtle ways, exposing many children to behaviors not appropriate to a young audience. Remember ?the Menendez brothers, who ruthlessly shot their parents as they ate ice cream and watched TV in their family room, planted in children?s minds the worst possibility -- that a parent could die violently at the hands of a child.? (Medved, et. al. 243) Seeing the violence, hearing about it, watching news reports about violent acts committed by real people, especially other children, affects the viewer negatively. Children can not relate to what they see when they are so young, making the act of watching violent television extremely questionable. Children should not know about murder and rape; however according to Gloria Tristani, Commissioner for the Federal Communications Commission, by the time they finish elementary school, children have witnessed 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence. (Tristani...
The television has become such a common household appliance that it goes unnoticed and is often underestimated. A normal American household has the television on for more than 7 hours a day, and children ages two to eleven spend an average of twenty eight hours a week viewing (Murray, 1994). This means that during one year a child will spend over one thousand hours watching TV, which over half of children report is unsupervised and has no time restraints (Murray 1994). During these endless hours of watching TV, many programs, particularly children’s involve violence. Sixty percent of all TV shows shown during prime time viewing hours incorporate some from of violence (Tompkins, 2013). Over years of research there as been a large debate as to whether violence on television has impact on its viewers, especially children, and there is a proven correlation. Overall this research has concluded that children who have viewed thi...
Drive-by shootings and school massacres are just two of the many violent past-times of today’s youth. Is television a contributor to this insidious erosion of children's respect for life? Much research that has been done in an attempt to answer this question. The majority of the findings are very similar in content, and the results are grim. Television violence has been shown to cause four major changes in children's behavior: "Increasing aggressiveness and anti-social behavior, increasing their fear of becoming victims, making them less sensitive to violence and to victims of violence, and increasing their appetite for more violence in entertainment and in real life." (AAP Committee) Television is causing a change in America's children, and it is not a change for the better.
Violence and explicit themes on television have been a main benefactor in behavioral problems in children, causing educational issues as well. Studies have shown that “excessive TV viewing can lead to poor grades in school” (Boyse Online). TV has even been shown to affect the mood of the child, usually “TV doesn’t improve their disposition. They’re grouchy and irritable right after they watch” (Winn 19). When violence is included in speech or an action a child’s favorite show or movie it wouldn’t be uncommon if that youth would try to imitate it. “Many shows glamorize violence. TV often promotes violent acts as a fun and effective way to get what you want, without consequences, Even in G rated movies violence is common” (Boyse Online). As children are growing it’s important what parents put in the stomach’s of their child so it’s also important what being fed to their brain. This makes them vulnerable and susce...
Studies reveal that children watch approximately twenty-eight hours of television a week, more time than they spend in school. The typical American child will view more than 200,000 acts of violence, including more than 16,000 murders before age 18. Television programs display 812 violent acts
... much while watching television. It’s important for children to play, read, do homework and talk to other children and adults for healthy development. Most parents believe children are imitators and those who watch violent shows are more likely to display aggressive behavior and violence in the media, television programming, video games and movies are a growing concern.
Media has always had a huge impact on the human race, resulting in an increasing problem in modern society. Violence in media is a huge issue lately, and it is getting harder to avoid. Many parents these days are busy with work; thus, they do not have time to control what their children are watching. Even for baby sitters, television programs are a common way to entertain the kids. An average kid will spend around twenty-eight hours a week on the internet/television, so at least four hours a day (Boyse, 2010). They spend more time consuming the violent scenes than communicating with their friends, or doing schoolwork. For children with early access to violent media, it plays a key role in their development of aggression and it is similar to
Television violence linked to bad behavior in young children has been going on for years. Some claim that parents are using it as an excuse to blame the media and I agree in some cases that is true but not in all cases. We cannot ignore the fact that television does feature a lot of violence and aggressive behavior and in young fresh minds these type of behaviors stick. Children begin mimicking behaviors as soon as they are born and as they get older they continue to do so. A two year old learning how to speak hears a curse word and repeats it, sure they don’t know or understand what it means but just because they don’t understand the meaning of the word doesn’t take away the fact that it is a bad word and should not be coming out of a young child’s mouth. The same ...
Society has been bombarded with violence from the beginning of time. These concerns about violence in the media have been around way before television was even introduced. Nevertheless, there have been numerous studies, research, and conferences done over the years on television, but the issue still remains. Researchers do acknowledge that violence portrayed on television is a potential danger. One issue is clear though, our focus on television violence should not take attention away from other significant causes of violence in our country such as: drugs, inadequate parenting, availability of weapons, unemployment, etc. It is hard to report on how violent television effects society, since television affects different people in different ways. There is a significant problem with violence on television that we as a society are going to have to acknowledge and face.
Television violence causes destructive behavior in children, however; television can be a powerful influence to young viewers in our society. Unfortunately, much of today's television programming are very violent. Many researchers like scientists, pediatricians, and child researchers in many countries have studied to find out what it is about television violence that makes it such a big affect on the way kids act and behave. Sometimes, children think that is a normal thing in our real life, by watching only a single violent program, which can increase aggressiveness on children and become violent, aggressive, and vicious.
Furthermore, television violence causes aggressive behavior in children. Many people believe that children who watch violent television programs exhibit more aggressive behavior than that exhibited by children who do not (Kinnear 23). According to the results of many studies and reports, violence on television can lead to aggressive behavior in children (Langone 50). Also, when television was introduced into a community of children for the first time, researchers observed a rise in the level of physical and verbal aggression among these children (Langone 51). The more television violence viewed by a child, the more aggressive the child is (“Children” 1).
Fisher, Deborah A. "Television Violence Contributes to Aggressive Behavior in Young People." 2007. Opposing Viewpoints. .