Kids And Violence Essay, Research Paper

Violence on Television: How It Affects Today s Youth

Part I Introduction

My partner and I are both seniors attending High School. This upcoming summer will be my third year life guarding at the Columbian Swim Club, in Union. My partner has worked in the building next door, the Boys & Girls Club, for the past two years. Both of our jobs are centered on children. We work with them on a daily bases and know a lot about their actions. As a result, we chose to do our project on a topic relating to today s youth.

Part II Statement of the Problem

Anthony and I came up with a problem that concerns many parents. It seems as though violence plays a role in the lives of many people. Even innocent children are affected by the negative things that go on in the huge world we live in. Television violence is often overlooked because of its ability to retain children s attention. Countless mothers and fathers put their children in front of the television so they can have time to themselves. As a result, the kids are subjected to unnecessary media violence. Anthony and I feel as thought this violence has a great effect on the children s lives. We decided to further investigate this hypothesis.

Part III Methodology

We presented 45 kids, ranging from ages 6 through 15, with a short questionnaire regarding the television shows they watch. The age categories were broken down into three groups. These were ages 6-9, ages 10-12, and ages 13-15. The purpose of this was to find if age had anything to do with the results. The questions asked the children what their favorite TV show is, if they stop doing school work to watch TV, if they act violent towards their friends and family, and if they prefer happy shows or sad shows. The questionnaire was anonymous so that the children would answer honestly. We were hoping to find some sort of connection between the shows children watch and whether or not they are violent towards their family and friends.

Part IV Date Analysis/Findings

The results of the project show an obvious correlation between TV violence and children s actions toward people in their lives. The kids who watch violent shows, such as Power Rangers, Jerry Springer, OZ, and WWF tend to act violently towards their family and friends, while the kids who watch family-type shows, such as Rugrats and Doug don t act violent. More specifically, every child who watches WWF or OZ, the two most aggressive shows listed on our questionnaire, acts violent. A lot of the older kids put down their homework to watch violent TV shows. The kids in the youngest category, ages 6 9, seem to be too young to be greatly affected by the violence. Another possibility could be that the survey did not keep their attention, and they were just randomly guessing at the questions. These younger kids rarely stop doing homework to watch violent shows, and they favor family-type shows over violent ones. The older age groups prefer violent shows like Jerry Springer, OZ, and WWF. Although they are older and more mature, they admitted to being violent as a result of the programs they watch on TV.

Our hypothesis was definitely proven to be accurate. When asked if kids watching family-type shows act violent towards their friends and family, 36% said yes and 64% said no. 62% of kids who watch violent shows act violent, while only 38% are non-violent. 56% of all the children questioned would stop doing their homework to watch a violent TV show and 44% would not. The majority of these kids were in the 10-12 and 13-15 age groups. As stated before, the younger children do not seem to be affected by the violence.

Part V Action Planning

Something needs to be done to keep innocent children exactly what they are innocent. Parents have to realize that putting their kids in front of a television can be causing more harm than they think. They need to regulate what their children watch. When the clock strikes 9:00, very small children should not even have access to the channel changer. Programs after this time are targeted at an older, more mature audience. Kids over 10 can still watch TV after nine o clock, but they too should be monitored. Statistics show that almost 95% of all shows plots are about sex and violence. These topics are not appropriate for individuals under 14 or 15. Even at those ages, discretion should be used. Almost every channel rates their shows before they begin by flashing an age on the bottom of the screen. If parents would take the extra time to check out what they put their kids in front of, they could avoid further problems. After all, kids of the present time will be running this world in the future.