Children And Television Violence example essay topic

Sponge Bob Square Pant is Taking Over FACT: The average American child will have watched 100,000 acts of televised violence, including 8000 depictions of murder, by the time he or she finishes sixth grade (approximately 13 years old). We live in an era where both parents are often working and children have more unsupervised time. The children of America spend their time on many different activities. One of the most time consuming activities is watching television.

"The average child spends more time watching TV than in school. On average, kids spend about 20 or more hours each week watching TV, which is more time than is spent in other activity besides sleeping" (Children Now, 1998). Television plays a large role in the social and emotional development of children today. One good quality that television has is that it conveys information and happenings around the world that they may not otherwise know about, but some people have been questioning whether television does more harm than good. Many have been analyzing what affect violence in adult shows as well as children's shows may have on children. Most parents allow their children to watch so called 'kid's shows' without even thinking about what might be contained within them.

How many times has a certain hunter been seen hunting a certain 'was cally wabbit'? Most people would say 'how can a cartoon about a man hunting affect a child?' At first it may seem that it has no effect, but, looking closer, it is easy to see that Bugs Bunny has many human traits. Two of these traits are speaking English and walking upright. Something else that adds to this is that sometimes children cannot make the distinction between fantasy and reality. Quickly a cartoon about a man hunting a rabbit can turn into a story of murder. Another cartoon character that may harm children is Yosemite Sam.

When he becomes angry, he begins to fire his pair of guns into the air and at other characters. This could cause children to act violently to appease their anger. This includes hitting and throwing things. This is an extreme view of the situation, but who is to say that at least part of it is not true? "NTV S found that most of the 'high risk' portrayals of violence on TV occurred in children's programs where attractive characters inflicted justified, realistic, remorseless violence on victims who appeared to suffer few consequences. Basic cable channels targeted at the child audience carried the lion's share of these problematic portrayals" (National Television Violence Study, 1997).

There are many cases dealing with the death of one or more children due to them 'trying-out' a move they watched on television that 'look real cool'. Even if there was only one case, that would be one too many for me not to think we had taken a wrong turn somewhere. As a society, we have become so numb to these kinds of television shows that it becomes nothing to let children watch them and try out certain moves and tricks on their little brother or sister, or even a next door neighbor. 'Watching videos may also induce violent and aggressive feelings, potentially cultivating attitudes that may lead to certain types of violent behavior' (Mitroff, 2000). Children see violence everyday in their cartoons, but what about shows that they watch in which people star. These shows will more than likely cause more violence than cartoons would.

While watching a show such as 'WWE' a child sees almost one hour of non-stop fighting. The show also has a fantasy story that appeals to children. After watching the show, a child may become bored because the reality of the television show is more interesting. The child then imitates what was seen on television. This is where the actual violence may begin.

Adult shows and movies that are seen by children could have even worse effects than children's shows. In one documented case, a 14-years old boy from Twin Cities, MN. stares into the video camera and says, 'Don't try this at home' and then sets himself on fire to imitate stunts from 'Jackass: The Movie' (Sherman, 2003). The danger with violence on television begins with imitation and escalates with experimentation. This is an extreme case, but it is a case. Television violence is a major problem in our society. Some people are working to end it; others are simply ignoring it, hoping that it will somehow go away and some people are trying to tell America that what a child sees on TV will not affect him.

We must work to eliminate the problem now. Watching television may not make our children grow up to be a cold-blooded murderer, but the total impact of witnessing repeated acts of violence may slowly cause our society to become more and more aggressive until there are too many killings to list on the news. We will never actually be able to tell what the ultimate impact of violence on television is until it actually happens, but will that be too late for us to recover from it? Only time will tell... ReferenceBoyse, K, McCuiston, M, & Song, E. (2004, July) Television.

University of Michigan Heath System. Retrieved on February 5, 2005, from web Children Now. (1998, Winter). Children and the Media: Children and Television Violence. Retrieved February 5, 2005 from web Mitroff, D. Ph D. (2000, March 7) Youth and Violent Music. Media Scope.

Retrieved February 5, 2005, from web A. (2003, April 18). Boy badly burned after trying movie stunt. Pioneer Press on the Web. Retrieved on February 2, 2005, from web.