Effects Of Television Vilolence On Children Essay

, Research Paper

Jeremy Lohr

Dr. Jordan

4/17/98

Final Draft

The Effects of Television Violence on Children

Television violence without doubt effects and influences children. Television violence effects children’s development and makes them more aggressive. Children cannot distinguish between the real world and the television world, which makes them more susceptible to the violence on television. It is up to the parents and the television stations to monitor television more closely and restrict violence from children.

According to Websters Dictionary, violence is “rough or injurious physical force, action or treatment, unjust or unwanted exertion of force or power”. In today’s society there is enough violence in every day living that television violence is not necessary, 80 percent of Americans feel that television violence is harmful to our society and there is too much of it in our entertainment (Zuckerman 64).

Violence comes in many forms on television. The violence that will be discussed in this paper are violence’s such as; murders, muggings, rapes and random property destruction (Katz 113). Violence can be viewed in cartoons, soap operas and prime time shows.

Statistics have proven that children view too much television and too much violence. The average child sees 8,000 murders and 10,000 acts of violence before finishing elementary school and by the age of eighteen a youngster will see 20,000 acts of murder and 40,00 acts of violence ( Weir 14). Television violence is definitely on the up-rise. Violence acts on television in the past decade had increased eight percent, where as educational programs have only increases three percent, which means that the amount of violent programming and viewing violent programming is twice that of educational programs (Katz 113). Our society should be concentrating on education our children, not scarring them with violence.

One thousand studies have been published world wide on violent entertainment and most experts now agree that the impact on viewers is largely negative (Posch 13). Violence has long lasting effects on children behavior (Katz 113). According to George Cornstock, at least 10 percent of all violent behavior in America’s society is a result of viewing violence in movies and on television(Katz 113). Doctor Belson did a study in 1978 on 1,565 boys from ages 12-17. He exposed them to television violence for six months, he also had fifty judges rate the program for twenty five different forms of violence ( Posch 44). The violent behavior was measured by asking the boys if they had committed any violent crimes in the last five months. The out come showed that a little over on half of the boys had committed a crime or had some sort of aggressive behavior. This experiment proved to Elgor Belson that boys like to watch violent programs which make them more aggressive and more violent (Posch 115).

Study after study has found that children who watch more hours of violent television than average before adolescence were committing such violent crimes as rape and assault at a rate of 49 percent higher than the boys who watched fewer than average hours of violent television. (Weir 14)

Television violence affects youngsters of all ages, both genders and all socioeconomic levels and levels of intelligence ( Wier 14)

Leonard Eron, the chair of the American Psychological Association commission on violence and youth, says television can arouse children to commit violent acts or even teach them techniques (Brady 60). Dr. Park Dietz, a Los-Angeles based psychiatrist,who testified at the 1991 trial of Jeffrey Dohmer (a serial killer),” estimated that 5 percent of assault by urban males in the United States of America is due to antisocial personalities, which television can arouse and cause the individuals to commit a violent act or teach them techniques on how to commit the violent acts(Brady 60).

Television is the most powerful behavioral model for children because of the time spent watching it (Slaby 5). Children will view 10,000-15,000 hours of television before they graduate from school (Slaby 4). Television violence is viewed more because 50 percent of both parents work at least eight hours a day leaving children alone to watch what they want (Weir 4). “The television then becomes the mother, the father, the baby-sitter , the preacher, and the teacher all in one” (Weir 14).

Preschoolers are particularly vulnerable because they are not yet fully able to distinguish fantasy from reality ( Brady 10). Television is especially harmful to those preschoolers who faithfully watch television. It gives many of them the idea that what they see portrayed on the screen as a matter of coarse is what other are expected to do in real life (Berry 13).

Television makes the unthinkable a little more thinkable, a little more O.K. For example, when a violent car accident happens on Television vision, the person heals quickly, even when close to death: when in reality healing is a slow process and the person doesn’t always live. This gives children false guidance and makes them angry and aggressive when things in reality don’t work out this way. Children who view violence are more likely to be developmentally damaged according to Barry Zuckerman , a pediatrician and professor of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at