Over many years of research, studies have found that the television violence has increased. Certain “role model” type characters initiate most of these violent behaviors. These are usually very aggressive incidents and they very often include humor. “The average American preschooler who watches mostly cartoons is exposed to over 500 high-risk portrayals of violence each year” (DeGaetano). Youth violence has been growing throughout the years. Some effects noticeable in children are mean behavior towards others, aggressive actions while playing with classmates and toys, and also fear.
Television has an important influence in the lives of children today. In many households it is the center of activity for the children, or acts as a baby-sitter. What goes on during these shows can have a great influence on a child’s behavior, as children often imitate what they see. Three different types of shows include educational, cartoons, and all a prime-time comedies. A young audience watches all these. Television shows that I viewed included Barney and Friends, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The Simpsons. Barney and Friends is a show on PBS, and the show is geared at preschoolers. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a cartoon watched mostly by young boys. The Simpsons is a show which airs both at primetime and in syndication during early evening hours, more likely to be geared at an adult audience but children watch it too. Some acts of verbal and physical aggressions in these television shows are included in these programs, which were not really appropriate for children.
Barney and Friends focuses on a big purple dinosaur playing with little children in a classroom. This was the least violent show, lacking any physical or verbal aggression. This show was basically about the children getting along with each other, sharing and singing. There was no name-calling or anything offensive for children’s eyes. Some simple learning lessons were incorporated into this program, such as the days of the week and counting. This is a show which really only has the appeal of preschoolers, not going on to much of an older age group. Perhaps the lack of violence in this show may not get the attention of an older audience. More shows like this with an educational influence are needed on Television.
A show like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to be more violent for children, but very fictional.
Many things should be done to change children's view on television and how much violence should be on the television. Children today act and dress older than they are. The fact remains that they still are children. The children that watch Barney and sing along and have a great time learn to love one another. The children who watch Power Rangers begin to kick each other and fight because that is what they are seeing on television. We should sit down and explain to our kids that the Power Rangers are trained actors and actresses. They are actually not hitting and kicking each other. Watching violence makes children act violently. As long as children see it being done, they are going to do it also. Children imitate everything they see.
Why might you ask? Well, I have three reasons which are that this show contains violence, a lot of ill-suited scenes, and they don’t have a positive role models kids can look up to. Sorry kids, but soon you’ll know why, and
In “Television Harms Children”, Ann Vorisek White claims that the intellectual and cognitive development of children who frequently watch television is threatened. To support this claim, she points to the findings that “the more television children watch, the weaker their language skills and imaginations” (White, 2006). Before the brain fully matures around age 12, it is in the stage of rapid development. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) “recommends that children under the age of two not watch TV or videos, and that older children watch only one to two hours per day of nonviolent, educational TV” (White, 2006). A study from the AAP (as cited in White, 2006) found that the average American child watches four hours of television every day. Considering "expression and reasoning are not automatic" abilities, young children who routinely watch television eventually become "passive and nonverbal" to stimuli in their environment (White, 2006). Since the normality of curiosity and imaginations of young children are the foundation of how they learn, remaining passive for extended periods of time affects their intellectual and moral development.
Psychologists have discovered that some cartoons tend to contain violence and may cause children to demonstrate aggressive behavior. “Children who have a high degree of exposure to the media may exhibit a relatively high incidence of hostility themselves in imitation of the aggression they have witnessed.” (Berkowitz, 1962) There have been numerous violent episodes that have been determined to be copycat cases of violence on television. In situations like this, the media exposure is considered to be reinforcement of the behaviors.
American Psychological Association. Violence on Television: What do Children Learn? What can Parents Do? Washington: Brochure, 1997.
Television has become a big part in children’s day-to-day lives especially in the 20th century. Children in this century rely on television to keep them entertained and educated instead of entertaining and educating themselves by participating in activities, which will teach them a lot more in life then the actual television. There is no doubt that children are most easily influenced by television because of the different content that they watch as well as the amount of time consumed watching TV. The television does have an emotional and intellectual development on children but this all depends on the content that they’re watching and the way that they absorb the information that the show is trying to send out. Different programs will portray
Children in their adolescents years watch a great amount of TV each week and it is almost inevitable that they will start to be influenced by what they see on their television. They will see diffe...
Television programs that are targeted towards children, such as cartoons, can affect children in both positive and negative ways. I examined a variety of cartoons on both commercial and public television to observe the content of children's programming and determine the effects, both positive and negative, that programs have on children. The cartoons contain a wide variety of subject matters that can influence children in many different ways. I found that the majority of cartoons choose to use violence and inappropriate subject matter to entertain children. These images and stories can have a tremendous negative impact on children because the violence is rewarded without consequences, is glorified, and idealized. Children look up to the characters that have a negative impact by distorting their views on conflict resolution. There are, however, cartoons that contain little or no violence and often try to incorporate educational lessons that concern values and morals that are important for children to learn, thus having a positive impact.
Horror movies are filled with violence as well, such as Halloween, Scream, and Saw. Horror shows and movies are showing stabbings and serious harm. Television shows, like the Three Stooges, Cops, wrestling and America's Funniest Videos! Children's cartoons have violence as well: Disney animated films, Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Watership Down. Some students have played violent video games to have fun with their friends or siblings while online and offline.
Most American's would agree that children watch a lot of TV. It's common to see a child sitting in front of the TV on a Saturday morning with their Coco Pebbles watching their favorite superhero. This sounds harmless enough. However, many parents and teachers across the country are worried about the cartoons their children are watching. They feel that the cartoons have become too violent and are having negative long-term effects on children. It is common to see young boys pretending to shoot one another, while jumping on the couch and hiding in closets as a sort of make-believe fort. But parents say that children are learning these behaviors from cartoons and imitating them. Others however, disagree, they say that violence in cartoons does not effect children and that children need this world of fantasy in their lives. They say that children would show these same behaviors regardless of the content of the cartoons they watch.
As early as 1958 investigations were being conducted of the effects of television on children. During this time, the researchers found that most of the television content was extremely violent. In almost half of the television hours monitored, the programs main focus contained violence. The common theme that was seen throughout the programs were crime, shooting, fighting, and murder. The universal definition of violence used was, "Any overt depiction of the use of physical force, or the credible threat of such force, to intend to physically harm an animated being or group of beings." In this investigation, Wilbur Schramm concluded that under some conditions, some violent television could effect some children. For the most part, most television is neither helpful or harmful to most kids under most circumstances. As you can see this conclusion is quiet vague, and does not give a lot of crucial information for us to correct and improve. Schramm and his colleagues came up with a solution for parents to provide a warm, loving, secure family environment for their children, and they would have little to worry about.
Cartoons on a television are glue to children. Children will spend hours a day watching their favorite cartoons, such as “SpongeBob SquarePants” or “Adventure Time.” Unfortunately, the content on these shows, and several others, can harm children. Directly, cartoons can affect how children think and act; additionally, this leads to the indirect effect of children physically hurting one another.
The show is a fantasy, set in the Stone Age town of Bedrock. Right off the back kids may be attracted by the prehistoric animals especially the dinosaurs. However, the a main ingredient that makes the show pop, is its’ violent comedy. A prime example would be one of the characters named Bamm Bamm who was a unusually strong toddler that yelled the phrase “Bam Bam” as he destructively swung his club damaging anything in his sight. When a child witnesses something like that, in their mind, they’re going to think its okay for a child to grab any tool and go on a swinging rampage.
Furthermore, television violence causes aggressive behavior in children. Many people believe that children who watch violent television programs exhibit more aggressive behavior than that exhibited by children who do not (Kinnear 23). According to the results of many studies and reports, violence on television can lead to aggressive behavior in children (Langone 50). Also, when television was introduced into a community of children for the first time, researchers observed a rise in the level of physical and verbal aggression among these children (Langone 51). The more television violence viewed by a child, the more aggressive the child is (“Children” 1).
In United States, “Children watch 4 hours of television every day, 28 hours a week and, sometimes, 10 hours on Saturdays and Sundays. Before their 18th birthday, children may view 25,000 hours of television” (Ni Chang 85). Nowadays, technology has been developed and used in many different ways. Many children spend large amount of time on IPad, smart phone, and computer. Clearly, television has played an important role in most of the younger age group’s life. As a parent, one of the biggest concerns about the influence that television has on the children is that they tend to become aggressive while they watch a lot of violent program. Communicating and engaging with one and other is limited because television has destroyed communication among family and removed children from the social interaction. Moreover, watching a lot of TV also contributes child obesity. Overall, television is harmful for children in their early development because it is not only going to delay their brain development, but also increase their aggressive behavior, and cause child obesity in a long term period.