Tv Violence And Children

TV Violence and Children

America has the highest crime rate in the world. Along with that crime

rate is also the substantially high violence rate. Why is violence

becoming and everyday event in our society? When you flip on the

"tv" 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, 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 we where younger we had things to watch like

"Sesame Street", "Mr. Rogers", and "Scooby - Doo". I

have nothing but good memories filled with happiness, . When you watch a 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

that have different beliefs, ideas, and morals. 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.

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 ways. 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 a major one in particular, some 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 child is affected."