Television: Is It Worth It?

Approximately two-thirds of Americans report that they get most of their information about the world from TV. Though influential, this phenomenon is relatively new. In 1956, only 4.6 million homes in the United States had television sets and no programming was available during many hours every day. By 1990, there were 92.1 million homes with TVs and the average viewer could select from approximately 30 channels. The number of homes with TVs keeps rising. Majority of these homes have television sets on for more than seven hours each day (Hurst M 2004).

Thus, the impact of television violence, more specifically on children, has been an issue discussed and debated by psychologists, sociologists, media networks and the viewing public in general. Exposure to television violence results in violent actions in real life, others believe that the opposite is true. Questions and doubts still pervade the validity of the studies and findings that have been conducted on the effects of television violence, although all seems to agree that television plays a major role in shaping the cultural and mental state of people. This paper, therefore, argues that television focuses on too much violence and that it is best that this is regulated and monitored by parents and all authorities concerned.

Several researchers have agreed that children extensively exposed to violence as projected on television tend to think that it is appropriate to act in violent ways (Hurst M 2004). The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry affirms this finding, stating that the effects of televised violence may become apparent immediately after watching, or may only become evident in adulthood. Theories that are being used by these researchers include Disinhibition, which affirms that television violence weakens people's inhibitions regarding aggression, and Desensitization, which holds that extreme exposure to television violence would lead viewers to regard violence as a normal part of life (Chandler D. 2004).

These statements are supported by numerous studies, both in and out of laboratories, conducted on children exposed to violent scenes. This argument is easily acceptable to the public because of the evidences and results that have been presented to support the