Children And Television Violence Essay, Research Paper

What

has the world come to these days? It often seems like everywhere one looks,

violence turns its ugly head. We see it in the streets, back alleys, schools,

and even at home. The last of these is a major source of violence. In many

peoples? living rooms there sets an outlet for violence that often goes unnoticed.

Children who view television are often pulled into the realistic, yet a devastating

world of violence.

Much research has gone into showing why children

are so mesmerized by this big glowing box and the action that takes place within

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 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 sixteen-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. When asked why he did it he replied that he wanted to

see if the results would be the same in real life as they were on television

(Howe 72). These are certainly startling examples of how television can affect

the child. 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.

Some psychologists and psychiatrists feel that continued exposure to such violence

might unnaturally speed up the impact of the adult world on the child. This

can force the child into a kind of premature maturity. As the child matures

into an adult, he can become bewildered, have a greater distrust towards others,

a superficial approach to adult problems, and even an unwillingness to become

an adult (Carter 14).

Television violence can destroy a young child?s

mind. The effects of this violence can be long-lasting. For some, television

at its worst, is an assault on a child?s mind, an insidious influence that

upsets moral balance and makes a child prone to aggressive behavior as it warps

his or her perception of the real world. Others see television as an unhealthy

intrusion into a child?s learning process, substituting easy pictures for the

discipline of reading and concentrating and transforming the young viewer into

a hypnotized non-thinker (Langone 48).

As you can see, television violence

can disrupt a child?s learning and thinking ability that will cause life-long

problems. If a child cannot do well in school, his or her whole future is at

stake.

Why do children like the violence that they see on television?

Since media violence is much more vicious than that which children normally

experience, real-life aggression appears bland by comparison (Dorr 127). The

violence on television is able to be more exciting and more thrilling than

the violence that is normally viewed on the streets. Instead of just seeing

a police officer handing a ticket to a speeding violator, he can beat the offender

to death on television. However, children don?t always realize this is not

the way situations are handled in real life. They come to expect it, and when

they don?t see it the world becomes bland and in need of violence. The children

then can create the violence that their mind craves.

The television

violence can cause actual violence in a number of ways. As explained above,

after viewing television violence the world becomes bland in comparison. The

child needs to create violence to keep himself satisfied (Dorr 127). Also the

children find the violent characters on television fun to imitate. Children

do imitate the behavior of models such as those portrayed in television, movies,

etc. They do so because the ideas that are shown to them on television are

more attractive to the viewer than those the viewer can think up himself (Brown

98). This has been widely seen lately with the advent of the Mighty Morphin

Power Rangers. Young children cannot seem to get enough of these fictional

characters and will portray them often.

Another reason why television

violence causes violence in children is apparent in the big cities. Aggressive

behavior was more acceptable in the city, where a child?s popularity rating

with classmates was not hampered by his or her aggression (Huesmann 166). In

the bigger cities, crime and violence is inevitable, expected and, therefore,

is left unchecked and out of line.

Much research into the topic of

children and television violence has been conducted. All of the results seem

to point in the same direction. There are undeniable correlation?s between

violent television and aggression. This result was obtained in a survey of

London schoolchildren in 1975. Greensberg found a significant relationship

between violence viewing and aggression (Dorr 160).

In Israel 74 children

from farms were tested as well as 112 schoolchildren from the city of Tel Aviv.

The researchers found that the city children watched far more television than

their farmland counterparts. However, both groups of children were just as

likely to choose a violent program to watch when watching television. The city

children had a greater tendency to regard violent television programs as accurate

reflections of real life than the farm children. Likewise, the city boys identified

most with characters from violent programs than did those living on the farms

(Huesmann 166).

The government also did research in this area. They

conducted an experiment where children were left alone in a room with a monitor

playing a videotape of other children at play. Soon, things got ?out of hand?

and progressive mayhem began to take place. Children who had just seen commercial

violence accepted much higher levels of aggression than other children. The

results were published in a report. A Surgeon General?s report found some preliminary

indications of a casual relationship between television viewing and aggressive

behavior in children (Langone 50).

In other research among American

children it was discovered that aggression, academic problems, unpopularity

with peers and violence feed off each other. This promotes violent behavior

in the children (Huesmann 166). The child watches violence that causes aggression.

The combination of aggression and continued television viewing lead to poor

academic standings as well as unpopularity. These can cause more aggression

and a vicious cycle begins to spin.

In yet another piece if research

children who watch a lot of violent television were compared to children who

don?t. The results were that the children who watched more violent television

were more likely to agree that it?s okay to hit someone if you?re mad at them

for a good reason. The other group learned that problems can be solved passively,

through discussion and authority (Cheyney 46).

The most important aspect

of violence in television is preventing it. There are many ways in which it

can be prevented, but not often are many carried out. These solutions are easy

to implement, but are often overlooked because of commercial purposes.

One such solution is to create conflict without killing. Michael Landon,

who starred in and directed ?Little House on the Prairie? managed to do so

in his programs. His goal was to put moral lessons in his show in an attempt

to teach while entertaining. On the program ?Hill Street Blues? the conflicts

are usually personal and political matters among the characters. Although some

violence does occur, the theme is not the action, but rather its consequences

(Cheyney 49).

Perhaps the most important way to prevent children from

watching television violence is to stop it where it starts. The parents should

step in and turn the set off when a violent program comes on. The parents are

the child?s role models from which he learns. If he can learn at an early age

that violence on television is bad, then he can turn the set off for himself

when he is older. Education should start at home.

Fixing the problems

of children and television violence isn?t easy. There are many factors that

have to be considered and people to be convinced. This problem will, no doubt,

never go away and continue to get worse as the years go by. However, there

are measures that can be taken to prevent the children from ever being exposed

to such things. After all, what?s the world going to be like when the people

who are now children are running the world?

Langone,

John. Violence. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1984.

Cheyney, Glenn Alan.

Television in American Society. New York:

Franklin Watts Co., 1983.

Howe,

Michael J. A. Television and Children. London: New

University Education,

1977.

Husemann, L. Rowell. ?Social Channels Tune T.V.?s effects.?

Science News 14 Sept. 1985: 166.

Door, Palmer. Children and the Faces of

Television. New York:

Academic Press, 1980.

Carter, Douglass. TV

Violence and the Child. New York: Russel

Sage Foundation, 1977.