When all of these things are blended together it gives children a completely false conception of violence and what it is. It becomes a part of their everyday routine and they dont even realize what they are viewing. Ultimately children are becoming desensitized to violence. Another study that I read about in John Murray Children and Television Violence showed that early violent TV viewing habits had a lasting behavioral effect. In the study, where children were followed from age eight into adulthood showed that violent television not only desensitizes people to violence, but it also has lasting effects on violent activity into adulthood. In 1963 Leonard Eron began a study on the aggression of eight year olds and their TV viewing habits.
He established which children were more aggressive and which were more passive, and then checked up on them ten years later when they were 18. He found that there was still a relationship between early TV viewing habits and aggression. Most interestingly though was when Eron followed up on them as adults at the age of 30. He found that there was a relationship between early viewing and arrest and conviction for crimes such as spouse abuse, child abuse, murder and aggravated assault. Both of these sources of information suggest that television violence contributes to desensitization to violence and long-term effects that make them more prone to commit crimes when they become older. Children dont understand the consequences of violence and learn to accept violence as a way to solve problems This hypothesis overlaps in some ways with some of my previous hypotheses.
In the study that I spoke of earlier from Impact of Televised Violence where boys and girls were interviewed about what they would do if they were pushed off their bike relates to this hypothesis. Most of the children that watched violent television answered that they would respond with violence. This shows that children who watch violent TV accept violence as a way to deal with their conflicts and problems. Another document that I found on the Internet titled The Effects of Media Violence on Children by Dr. Jane Ledingham stated that children between the ages of six and ten are not able to distinguish between what is real and what is fake. Children in this age group believe that most of what they see on TV is true to life.
This poses a problem because they see people on TV that can use violence and suffer no consequences; therefore they think that it is acceptable for them to use violence too. Overall children usually dont understand that there are consequences and people get hurt when violence is used because oftentimes the consequences are simply not shown on TV. Children begin to believe that the world is a dangerous and scary place In nearly all of the documents that I read, it was mentioned that a lot of children become afraid of the world because of all the disturbing things that they see on TV. As I said before children under the age of ten dont understand what is true to life and they dont have any experience to evaluate what they are viewing. In the article children and Television Violence by John Murray, he talked about a study that was conducted by George Gerber. In the study researchers asked children questions about their perception of risk in the world.
Examples of the questions asked were: How likely is it that you are going to be the victim of a violent crime in the next six months? How far from your home would you be willing to walk alone at night? Researchers found that they were able to predict the fearfulness of the child based on the amount of violent TV they watched. Children that viewed four hours or more each day were much more afraid of the world around them than children that viewed an hour or less. After conducting my research, I have formed the following theory: Violence on television does have an effect on children’s changes in attitudes and behavior. In particular there are three main effects. The first is increased fearfulness and the belief that the world is as dangerous as it appears on TV. The second main effect is desensitization and the acceptance of violence as normal.
The last main effect is aggressive behavior and willingness to use violence. Although through my research the effects are obvious, it is not fair to entirely blame disruptive children on television. Many other things could contribute to these three main effects. Oftentimes poor parenting skills along with other things are at fault for overly aggressive behavior. Even though TV is not entirely to blame, there is no denying that television has a huge impact on children and our society as a whole. Implications Assuming that my theory is true, it is now necessary to work on bringing about change.
Some areas that we can change are at home, at school, and in the television industry. At home it is necessary for parents to understand the effects that television is having on their children. If parents were to view with their kids and talk to them about what the see and try to explain to them about what is true to life and what isnt television could be a constructive learning tool. The problem is that most parents will hook their kids up to the TV so that they can get things done around the house. At school it would be effective if children were taught how TV works and the process of effects. At the industry level The Childrens Television Act in 1990 set restrictions on the amount of advertising in programming for children (Murray).
In addition when a station applies for license renewal they need to explain how they have helped to promote children’s education in their programming. Slowly changes have taken effect and will continue to into the future. Most importantly, parents need to take an active role in their children’s lives and many conflicts could be avoided. Surprises I was shocked by some of the findings of the studies conducted about how television affected people, not just children.
In an investigation about adults and the effects of the portrayal of suicides in soap operas showed that over a six-year period whenever a major soap opera character committed suicide there was a significant increase in the number of female suicides within three days after across the country (Murray). This surprised me because adults are supposed to be stable and not that impressionable. I simply cannot comprehend why something like that would push one over the edge. I was also surprised by other statistics like the amount of violent acts per hour. It amazes me that there are 20 to 25 violent acts per hour during Saturday morning cartoons (Murray). Overall I was shocked to see exactly how much something so unimportant like television is able to take over peoples lives and have such a huge effect on them.
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