Television

American children watch an average of three to fours hours of television daily. Television can be a powerful influence in developing value systems and shaping behavior. Unfortunately, much of today's television programming is violent. Hundreds of studies of the effects of TV violence on children and teenagers have found that children may: become "immune" or numb to the horror of violence, gradually accept violence as a way to solve problems, imitate the violence they observe on television; and identify with certain characters, victims and victimizers. Extensive viewing of television violence by children causes greater aggressiveness. Sometimes, watching a single violent program can increase aggressiveness. Children who view shows in which violence is very realistic and frequently repeated or unpunished are more likely to imitate what they see. Children with emotional, behavioral, learning or impulse control problems may be more easily influenced by TV violence. The impact of TV violence may be immediately evident in the child's behavior or may surface years later. The influence of violent television shows is placing a negative impact on children's mentality.

By the time a child is eighteen years old, he or she will have witness 200,000 acts of violence including 40,000 murders just by watching television. Children from the ages eight to eighteen spend more time in front of computers, televisions, and game screens than any other activity in their lives except sleeping. For over fifty years, more than 1,000 studies have been done on the effects of violence in television and movies. The majority of these studies prove that children who watch large amounts of television and movie violence are more likely to display aggressive behavior, attitudes, and values. Media violence has a great influence on children's behavior. Children are affected at any age, but young children are most susceptible to the effects of media violence. They are more easily influenced, have a harder time distinguishing between fantasy and reality, cannot easily separate motives for violence, and learn by observing and imitating. Young children who see media violence have a greater chance of exhibiting violent and aggressive behavior later in life, than children who have not seen violent media. Children who watch more TV are not only open to the elements of more media violence, but are more likely to act more forcefully with peers.

Children have become much more interested in cartoons over many years and it has become a primary action to some lives. Typically, children begin watching cartoons on television at an early age of six months, and by the age two or three children become enthusiastic viewers. This has become a problem because too many children are watching too much television and the shows that they are watching (even if they are cartoons) have become violent and addictive. One critique said, "Just as every cigarette one smokes increases a little bit the likelihood of a lung tumor some day, the theory supported by this research suggests that every violent TV show increases a little bit the likelihood of a child growing up to behave more aggressively in some situation." Every action has an effect whether it is positive or negative. What can be done to solve this issue of violence in cartoons and the negative effects and ideas it imposes on the children of our world? I feel the best solution is stronger enforcement of television ratings along with parental regulation. If ratings are implemented more effectively then parents will be able to better regulate what their children watch. As stated by Winston Churchill, "if they give us the tools, we'll finish the job," if parents are given more information, they would be able to more effectively take control. There have been many different methods introduced to help parents filter their children's viewing. Michael Meved believes a new ratings system would be beneficial. In his article "Better Ratings Systems Would Help Parents Protect Children from Media Violence," Medved argues that in the end, it is ultimately the parent's responsibility to monitor what their children are viewing. Since most adults do not work for the film industry, and probably do not get a chance to view a show or a movie before their child does to make sure it is appropriate, they often times do not have a clue what their children are watching. With the ratings system today, it is a task just to figure out the full phrase the abbreviations stand for, let alone fully understand what each means. "The current situation with ratings and parental warnings amounts to a chaotic, incomprehensible mess" (Medved 100). It would most likely be helpful if television and film could establish the same system and stick to it. "Establishing a universal rating would both facilitate and encourage greater parental supervision in the entertainment that children consume" (Medved 101). If a new rating system would surface, and was actually easy to understand and use, parents would hopefully take advantage of it. This would be beneficial to everyone because then children would not watch as many violent shows. Therefore, they would not grow up to be violent, aggressive people making the world a better place for everyone.

In 1989, a psychiatrist from Seattle, Brandon S. Centerwall published a report stating that television violence is destroying American Youth. Centerwall took it upon himself to conduct an experiment using the fact that television broadcasting was banned in South Africa. He graphed the changing murder rates for whites in Canada and the U.S. against television set ownership and compared them to the white murder rate in South Africa. Centerwall came to the conclusion that white homicide rates remained stable in South Africa, but in two control populations, Canada and the U.S. white homicide rates doubled following the introduction of television. In 1992 Centerwall stated, "If hypothetically, television technology had never been developed, there would today be 10,000 fewer homicides each year in the United States, 70,000