children tv and violence essay

Children, TV, and Violence
America has the largest crime rate in the world. Along
with that crime
rate is also the substantially high violence rate. Why? Why is
violence
becoming and everyday common happening in our society? When you
flip on the
"tele" and tune into the news, the highlight of every show is
somehow directly
related or connected to violence. We see it every evening and
perhaps say "Oh
my gosh, how terrible." and then forget all about it two minutes
later. Or
perhaps we don't even make any comments at all, just a simple
grunt or
" huh ". This numbness to violence is very scary and very
real. Why is it
then that America has the most crime and violence. Why not
Switzerland or
Australia. Are we not as civilized and advanced as they? I
believe it is this
numbness to violence that has made America so violent.
When I think back to my childhood and remember television
I remember
watching such programs as "Sesame Street", "Mr. Rogers", and
"Scooby - Doo". I
have nothing but pleasant memories filled with happiness, peace,
understanding,
and learning. When you watch children's programs today you see
senseless
violence often as the first means of solving a problem. The

classic view of
"good" versus "evil" is the basis of these shows with violence as
the answer.
When children watch these programs they copy the actions and
"morals" of these
shows depicting "good" and "evil". Children do not know what
"good" is or what
"evil" is, how can they? This world is not broken into "good"
and "evil".
"Evil" to children is what opposes them, what does not agree
with them, or any
other person or thing that poses a possible difficulty. Children
must be taught
that there are differences in this world. This world is filled
with many people
holding different beliefs, ideas, and morals. That is what
makes this world
so unique and colorful. Children need to learn to respect these
differences from
a very young age. They need to learn to talk out and solve any
disagreements or
problems through other means than violence. They must not "know"
violence as an
answer, as if violence was never even an option to consider in
solving a
problem.
I recently became aware of the problem of violence in
children when I
started observing small children at play at my apartment complex.
I had known

one small child in particular when he was just learning to speak.
I had watched
him and talked with him for several years and noticed nothing
"violent" nor
aggressive about him. Back then he played more outdoors rarely
ever going
inside (except when his mother called for dinner), but as he got
older and more
interested in television I noticed that he was becoming much more
aggressive
especially as he played outside with his friends and sisters. He
would punch
and copy the moves of the cartoon shows he watched even to the
point of copying
their war cries and sayings. The media claims that they have no
influence on
children, that could not be further from the truth. Children
are the easiest
to manipulate and take advantage of because they are innocent and
because they
are innocent they are also ignorant. Some people say that the
boy was merely
maturing, becoming more like a man. But how many five year old
boys do you
know that have testosterone flowing through their body? The main
problem was
the television shows that he was watching. That is very obvious.
The problem with the above mentioned case was not just
television itself
but the combination of television and child. Children are very

susceptible and
easily persuaded as we all know. In the early 1960's, Albert
Bandura of
Stanford was the first to present the theory that children not
only learned from
their parents through imitation but also through imitating
television. So when
children imitate what they see on television, especially when it
is something
that is rewarded, and knowing how violent television is these
days, television
can and does influence children in violent and aggressive means.
When children
are raised with violent television " they become desensitized
to real people's
suffering " (Leland 47). When children watch a man get blown
up across the
screen and see the hero prevail from the conflict it encourages
the thought that
when you want something, it's alright to obtain it through
violence because you
will be rewarded in the end. This along with the fact that a
murder on
television shows is so common that children begin to project what
they see on
television onto the world they live in and resulting in confusing
fantasy with
reality.
Most psychologists believe that media alone is not the
sole problem of

violence in children, but one in particular, Dr. Leonard Eron
disagrees. He
has done a 22 year study of children as they mature from the age
of eight to
adulthood to prove his theory that television has a greater
affect on children
than most think. His results are shocking. The studies conclude
that the single
best predictor of adulthood violence and aggression is not due to
violent homes,
poverty, poor school performance, single parent homes, nor to
real life
violence, rather to heavy amounts of television/media violence.
But " of
course not every youngster is affected." (Qtd. Leland 47). The
reason for this
is because children with fewer natural aggressive tendencies are
less affected
by television violence, in other words, if a child is naturally
aggressive,
violent television tends to bring these traits out. Eron also
discovered that
the content of the television doesn't need to be violent to have
a violent
affect on children. In fact television shows with high amounts
of action and
tension had the same results as those with violence, adding to
the large
spectrum of television programs that can have effects on
children. Researchers

have also found that the affects of violence in television on
adults is much
lower to that of children because adults know the difference
between what is
real and what is "tv land". Eron also states that though
television does not
affect adults as much, they are nevertheless affected, though
in other ways.
Another view presented by Walter Wink, a professor of biblical
interpretation
at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City, states that:
Children identify with the good guys so that they
can
think of themselves as good. This enables them to
project
out onto the bad guy their own repressed anger,
violence,
rebelliousness, or lust Salvation is guaranteed
through
identification with the hero. (Qtd. Levine 24)
Another interesting tid-bit about television violence: by age 18,
a child will
have seen at least 150,000 acts of violence on the television. By
age six, most
children will have watched 5,000 hours of television and by the
end of high
school, over 19,000 hours. That is a lot of television.
What would happen without television? One epidemiologist
named Brandon S.
Centerwall claims that without television the United States would

have nearly
10,000 fewer murders per year, almost 70,000 fewer rapes, and
700,000 fewer
assaults. Although many disagree Centerwall's statements and
predictions,
there is not doubt that without television there would be fewer
aggressive
actions in the United States. Proving the "no television, fewer
crimes" theory
will be very difficult but the evidence will eventually surface
in the years to
come. Perhaps then the television companies and corporations will
begin to see,
but perhaps it will be too late and television will be planted to
deep into the
roots of American society.
Children need to be more creative and television
certainly does not give
children the opportunity to be creative, Henry Alptrum puts it
best with "The
absence of television spawns creativity." (Alptrum). Television
gives the
viewer both sight and sound at once leaving only three senses to
imagine. Radio
leaves four senses. Books leave all five senses to imagine. In
fact a study in
Canada conducted by Tannis MacBeth 20 years ago on the effects of
television on
a small town produced results that were not surprising at all.
She discovered

that with the introduction of television to this small town
creativity dropped
and within two years the number of incidents of pushing,
shoving, hitting,
biting, and all other forms of aggressive actions by children
increased as much
as 160 percent. This cannot simply be coincidence. In another
related study
directed by Centerwall murder rates and in the United States,
South Africa,
and Canada doubled ten to 15 years after the introduction of
television. There
are hundreds of documented tests and experiments relating to the
fact that
violence on television has a very negative effect on children.
Is the media to take all the blame? Of course not.
After all, this is
America and I believe nothing more strongly than freedom of
speech and
expression. The solution to this problem is censorship.
Censorship not at the
governmental level, nor at the state level, nor at the cable
company level,
rather at the level of the parents. They and they alone are the
ones who need
to decide what is best for their children for only they know what
is best. When
I was a child my mother was always there to tell me what I could
and could not
watch. Of course when I was smaller I hated it, but now that I

am older I am
so grateful and thankful that my mother censored what was fed
into my brain.
But another problem arises! In today's society, two working
parents is the norm.
For many children there is no one at home to tend them, to tell
them what to
do and enforce it. Children are left to their own. A baby sitter
as an "adult"
replacement is fine for watching over the safety of the children,
otherwise
they could care less what the children watched because they
undoubtedly watched
or still watch the same program or consider it harmless because
it is an "after
school kids cartoon".
What has the media done to counteract this? Very little
to nothing.
They deny that the problem actually exists. But the problem does
exist and is
very real, and they can help stop it. They can help change it.
What then is
preventing it? What is preventing the media from trying to help?
Money of
course. What could be more important than money? These
children's shows are
big money makers and that says it all. The media has done very
little in the
actual solving of the problem, in fact about the only thing they
have done is

to add a special 30 second warning before a show or television
movie that may
contain scenes that require "parental supervision". Although
this is a step in
the right direction, more action is needed.
So where does the solution lay? There are several
options some are
obvious and some are just mere ideas. One way to control the
television is to
not turn it on. Another idea is to not purchase a television,
but that is
ridiculous because television can be informative and educational.
Just when it
seems that all hope is lost technology finds an answer: The
V-Chip.
The V-Chip was invented by a Canadian several years ago
with the purpose
of censoring what can be seen on television by youngsters. This
chip could be
inserted into all new television sets and would enable the owner
to define what
type of television shows could be viewed at home. This gives the
parents total
control over what is viewed on the set when no one is home to
keep an eye on the
nest. The chip is complete with a password to stop the little
computer genius
from overriding any settings. Ratings include such topics as,
violence (in
several levels), sex, language, mature content, etc It

offers quite an
expansive array of options and certainly has it's benefits. But
with every new
idea there is opposition. There are some that claim that it will
never help in
the battle against violence, but these are the same people who
believe that
more real type violence should be shown on television because of
the supposed
fact that it would have a cathartic affect on the populace.
Others are weary
about who decides what television show is violent or what movie
is too risqu‚.
They fear the government will take control over what the people
will see and for
that reason the V-Chip is unconstitutional. But the V-Chip
should be offered
nevertheless to those who want to take advantage of what it has
to offer not
unlike television sets that are mandated to have equipment for
the hearing
impaired.
Dr. Eron, a well known and well accredited psychologist,
adds another
possible problem to the V-Chip. He believes that the V-Chip is
too easy. The
V-Chip actually takes away the responsibilities of being a
parent. The
temptation for parents to merely block something out with a chip
and hiding the

truth is much too great with the V-Chip. When parents simply use
the chip to
block out the unwanted information children's curiosity is
heightened. The
parent's responsibility should include talking and discussing the
problems of
television violence. They should discuss the feelings of victims
of real
violence and draw a distinct line between what is seen on
television and what is
reality. Family rules and regulations should be made on how
much, when, and
what television programs can be viewed. The V-Chip helps in
setting these
guidelines but is in no way designed as a stand-alone apparatus.
One thing is for certain and that is tv does have an
affect of children
today. It has been proven over and over again in the many hours
of research and
years of testing that in the long run tv affects people. None are
more affected
than children. This problem of the affects of television is just
recently
becoming a known and well established health issue. A handful of
scientists and
psychologists had predicted that this nation would turn into
" a nation of
morons." (Qtd. Davies 36). America went from a nation with the
highest standards
of education and excellence in education to a nation with some of

the lowest
scores in education in the third world. This prediction of a
" a nation of
morons." (Qtd. Davies 36) is sadly becoming true. When headlines
like 'Six-
year-old charged with battering baby' are written across the
front page of the
daily newspaper that is when we should realize that there is
something wrong
going on in this nation. Children learn from watching
television. Whether it
is something morally sound or something criminally sound children
take in
everything they see and learn it. Parents must be the first line
of attack
against television taking over the children because they can no
longer ignore
the problem and hope that the television stations will somehow
come up with a
solution. The stations have done very little to help. The V-Chip
offers some
help but must be reinforced with parental discussions. There is
always one other
alternative to censoring what is fed into the minds of our
children. Peter
Goddard states it well with "You can turn the damn thing off, you
know." (25)