National Television Violence Study example essay topic

It often seems like everywhere one looks, violence rears its ugly head. It is seen in the muggings on the streets, physical assaults in back alleys, shootings at schools, and even at home. The last of these, surprisingly, is a major source of violence. In most living rooms there sits an outlet of the most violent behavior and it often goes unnoticed. It is the television and the children who view it are often pulled into its realistic world with sometimes devastating results.

More parents are using television as a means of entertaining their children when they are unable to, and the amount of television that children are watching is a growing concern in our society. In 1950, only 10% of American homes had a television and by 1960 the percentage had grown to 90%. Today, 99% of homes have a television. (Note 1) The results of many experiments and research have all shown that television is a major source of violent behavior in children and that the two do, in deed, go hand in hand. As much as society would like to ignore the fact, violence in the media does affect children. In New York, a 16-year-old boy broke into a cellar.

When the police apprehended him and asked him why he was wearing gloves, he replied that he had learned to do so from television as to not leave fingerprints. In Alabama, a nine-year-old boy received a bad report card from his teacher. He suggested sending the teacher poisoned candy in retaliation as he had seen on television the night before. In California, a seven-year-old boy sprinkled broken glass into the stew his family was to eat for dinner. When asked why, he replied that he wanted to see if the results would be the same in real life as they were on television. These are certainly sobering examples of how television can affect a child.

The average child spends approximately 28 hours a week watching television; twice as much time as is spent in school. By the age of 18, one child will have witnessed over 200,000 acts of violence on television, to include 16,000 murders. (Note 2) One might argue that these are impressionable children with no sense of right and wrong; however, some psychologists and psychiatrists feel that continued exposure to such violence might unnaturally speed up the impact of the adult world on the child. This can force the child into a kind of premature maturity. As the child matures into an adult, he can become confused, have a greater distrust towards others, a superficial approach to adult problems, and even an unwillingness to become an adult.

Media violence can destroy a young child's mind. The effects of this violence can be long-lasting, if not never-ending. For some, television at its worst is an assault on a child's mind, a negative influence that upsets moral balance and makes a child prone to aggressive behavior as it warps his or her perception of the real world. Others see television as an unhealthy intrusion into a child's learning process, substituting easy pictures for the discipline of reading and concentrating and transforming the young viewer into a hypnotized non-thinker. By having all the stories and facts plastered in front of them, they can easily lose interest sitting in a classroom all day. Even during their favorite TV show, there is a brief interruption in the story line when a commercial comes on.

Their attention spans are being molded by this continuous interruption, causing them to lose focus easily. Research has shown that teachers today are using more multimedia devices to capture the students' attention. Being so used to seeing information provided by the TV, they are more responsive to learning with it in school and are more apt to retain the information. In research of elementary children, many links are showing up in studies between Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and watching too much television.

Some parents may argue that they only allow their children to watch cartoons. In a startling case study conducted by Media Scope, it was discovered that 60% of children's programming had violence. Of this percentage, three quarters demonstrated unpunished violence and 58% of the victims experienced no pain. (Note 3) The government also did research in this area. They conducted an experiment where children were left alone in a room with a videotape of other children at play. Soon, things got out of hand and chaos in sued.

Children who had just seen commercial violence displayed much higher levels of aggression than other children. The results were published in a report that found some preliminary indications of a relationship between television viewing and aggressive behavior in children. One question that is oft asked is why are children so drawn to the horrific violent acts displayed in the media? Since media violence is much more vicious than that which children normally experience, real-life aggression appears bland by comparison. The violence on television is more exciting and enthralling than the violence that takes place in everyday life. Instead of just seeing a police officer handing a ticket to a speeding violator, one can view the offender getting pummeled within an inch of his life.

However, children don't always realize this is not the way thing are handled in real life. They come to expect it and when they don't see it, the world becomes tame in comparison. The children then create the violence that their mind craves. At the early stages in childhood development, children are impressionable and tend to mimic what they see and hear. Without proper control, the television can be a very powerful and very suggestive mode of information.

Education should start at home. Parents should limit the amount of time in front of the television and increase interaction time with their children. After all, what kind of world would we live in if we all solved our problems by pulling out a sword and fighting to the death? NOTES: 1. Nielson Media Research, 19952. Center for Media and Public Affairs, 19923.

National Television Violence Study, Media Scope, February 1996.