Television Violence Causes Violence In Children example essay topic

... pictures for the discipline of reading and concentrating and transforming the young viewer into a hypnotized non-thinker (Carter 48). As you can see, television violence can disrupt a child's learning and thinking ability that will cause life-long problems. If a child cannot do well in school, his or her whole future is at stake. Television violence is attractive to children and this attraction causes them to introduce acts of violence that they learned from television into their everyday lives. Since media violence is much more vicious than that which children normally experience, real-life aggression appears bland by comparison (Dorr 127). The violence on television is able to be more exciting and more thrilling than the violence that is normally viewed on the streets.

Instead of just seeing a police officer handing a ticket to a speeding violator, he can beat the offender to death on television. However, children don't always realize this is not the way situations are handled in real life. They come to expect it, and when they don't see it the world becomes bland and in need of violence. The children then can create the violence that their mind craves.

The television violence can cause actual violence in a number of ways. As explained above, after viewing television violence the world becomes bland in comparison. The child needs to create violence to keep himself satisfied (Dorr 127). Also the children find the violent characters on television fun to imitate.

Children do imitate the behavior of models such as those portrayed in television and movies. They do so because the ideas that are shown to them on television are more attractive to the viewer than those the viewer can think up himself (Howe 98). This has been widely seen lately with the advent of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Young children cannot seem to get enough of these fictional characters and will portray them often (Howe 98).

Television violence causes violence in children is apparent in big cities. Aggressive behavior is more acceptable in the city, where a child's popularity rating with classmates is not hampered by his or her aggression (Huesmann 166). In the bigger cities, crime and violence is inevitable, expected and, therefore, is left unchecked and out of line (Huesmann 167). The problem we face is not one for the U. S, but can be seen in all parts of the world. This result was obtained in a survey of London schoolchildren in 1975.

Greensberg found a significant relationship between violence viewing and aggression (Dorr 160). In Israel 74 children from farms were tested as well as 112 schoolchildren from the city of Tel Aviv. The researchers found that the city children watched far more television than their farmland counterparts. However, both groups of children were just as likely to choose a violent program to watch when watching television.

The city children had a greater tendency to regard violent television programs as accurate reflections of real life than the farm children. Likewise, the city boys identified most with characters from violent programs than did those living on the farms (Huesmann 166). The government also did research in this area. They conducted an experiment where children were left alone in a room with a monitor playing a videotape of other children at play. Soon, things got "out of hand" and progressive mayhem began to take place. Children who had just seen commercial violence accepted much higher levels of aggression than other children.

The results were published in a report. A Surgeon General's report found some preliminary indications of a casual relationship between television viewing and aggressive behavior in children (Howe 50). In other research among American children it was discovered that aggression, academic problems, unpopularity with peers and violence feed off each other. This promotes violent behavior in the children (Huesmann 166). The child watches violence that causes aggression. The combination of aggression and continued television viewing lead to poor academic standings as well as unpopularity (Howe 51).

These can cause more aggression and a vicious cycle begins to spin. Television is not always a negative influence. There is strong evidence that children's shows that were developed to teach academic and social skills can help children to learn effectively. In fact, research suggests that the positive effects of educational children's shows probably outweigh the negative effects of exposure to TV violence (Hearold, 1986). If violence on television helps to make children more aggressive, it is still only a small part of the overall problem. Other factors in a child's life may be far more influential than TV.

For example, pre-school ers who were given guns and other 'violent' toys to play with were found to commit more aggressive acts than pre-school ers who had merely watched a television program with violent content (Hearold, 1986). Another major factor that determines how aggressive a child will be is how his or her parents behave. If parents ignore or approve of their child's aggressive behavior, or if they lose control too easily themselves, a TV control plan will not help. Similarly, if parents themselves exhibit violent behavior, they serve as role models for their children. On the other hand, parents who show their children how to solve problems nonviolently and who consistently notice and praise their children for finding peaceful solutions to conflicts will have children who are less aggressive (Singer and Singer, 1986).

Children are highly influenced by their parents' viewing habits as they establish their own viewing patterns. One highly influential action parents can take, then, is to examine and regulate their own viewing behavior. Because toddlers imitate what they see and hear on TV, it might also be wise for parents to prevent their children from being exposed to content that portrays actions, (violent or otherwise) that might lead toddlers to harm themselves or others (Singer and Singer, 1986). The most important aspect of violence in television is preventing it.

There are many ways in which it can be prevented, but these preventive measures are rarely carried out. These solutions are easy to implement, but are often overlooked because of commercial purposes. One such solution is to create conflict without killing. Michael Landon, who starred in and directed "Little House on the Prairie", managed to do so in his programs.

His goal was to put moral lessons in his show in an attempt to teach while entertaining (Cheyney 51). On the program "Hill Street Blues" the conflicts are usually personal and political matters among the characters. Although some violence does occur, the theme is not the action, but rather its consequences (Cheyney 49). Perhaps the most important way to prevent children from watching television violence is to stop it where it starts. The parents should step in and turn the set off when a violent program comes on.

The parents are the child's role models from which he learns. If he can learn at an early age that violence on television is bad, then he can turn the set off for himself when he is older. The amount of time children watch TV, regardless of content, should be moderated, because it keeps children from other, more beneficial activities such as reading and playing with friends. If parents have serious difficulties setting limits, or deep concerns about how their child is reacting to television, they should contact a child and adolescent psychiatrist for help defining the problem. Education should start at home.

The constant barrage of television and media violence causes deviant behavior in children. This is a problem that has been researched by some of the most prominent institutions and people in the country. The research comes up the same every time. We have seen the numerous groups such as The National Cable association attempt to use the first amendment of the Constitution as a legitimate reason to poison the airways. There is no mention in any of their studies on how the violent problems have affected our children. This problem will, no doubt, never go away and continue to get worse as the years go by.

However, there are measures that can be taken to prevent children from ever being exposed to such potentially harmful violence (Cheyney 51). Without some or all of these control measures being utilized, we cannot prevent the increase in violence linked to the media and television.

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