Violence on Television

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Violence on Television

Today’s society is heavily influenced by television. The violence disrupts a child’s learning process and can alter the moral beliefs that an older person has. Children view more violence on Saturday mornings than any other time. The cartoons aimed at little children influence youngsters to mimic violent acts because their parents do not fully explain the effects of the stunts. It is pathetic that in such a technology based society, such a simple thing as television can have a negative effect on people.

Before Television, Americans followed simple laws, believed heavily in God, were honest, and never locked their doors because they felt safe and were happy to help someone in need. TV gradually turned us into the society we have today. We break laws as if there are no consequences, many people don’t believe in God, or even attend a religious service. We lock our houses, cars, and anything worth money, because we are scared of theft. We leave people in trouble to fend for themselves, we do not have the common courtesy to help anyone. (Wheeler 84) Liquor, drugs, sex, and suicide prematurely dazzle millions of people as they see it on TV. (Wheeler 23)

Violence has been entering Prime Time TV. John Grisham’s “The Client” as shown on CBS shows two corpses and two murders in on the first 15 minutes. (Silver 2) This goes to show that the average American child will have watched 8000 depictions of murder by the time they finish 6th grade. (Abelard 1) Abelard goes on to say, If you think wall to wall violence on TV has no effect, then why would manufacturers purchase 30 second blocks to advertise their products? (2) Mark Silver says “Raunchy family fare is nothing new.”(2) He also reports that sex is gingerly mentioned in the media. There is soap-opera sex, talk-show sex subjects, and many more sex crimes on the news. Children ages 10 to 16 were polled and say that the television is the true sex educator in our day. As many as six out of ten agree that sex on television urges peers their age to have sex at a younger age. (2)

Vulgarity also rules prime time. Many shows depict sexual situations and innuendoes throughout the whole show. Sexually frank programs such as “Beverly Hills 90210”, “Roseanne” and “Ellen” are targeted to adults, but are viewed by children. A Solution to this problem would be to shift their plots to being more ...

... middle of paper ...

... there. No other thing in history has had such a great influence on children, teens and adults. The generation now, compared to the one 50 years ago, has changed just from the technology presented to us. It is hard to imagine what the future will hold with such technological advances on equal to that of the TV.

Works Cited

Abelard. Children and Television Violence. 23 Oct 2000 < http://www.abelard.org/tv/tv.htm >

Children and TV Violence. 23 Oct 2000 <http://www.parenthoodweb.com/articles/phw247.htm>

Facts about Media Violence and Effects on the American Family. 18 Oct 2000 <http://www.babybag.com/

Articles.amaviol.html>

Media Watch Online- Killer Entertainment. 18 Oct 2000 < http://www.mediawatch.com/dukenuken.html >

Silver, Marc. Sex and Violence on TV. 22 Oct 2000 <http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/sex&viol.htm>

Swenson, Gena. Violence on television: A class project surprised sociology student. 18 Oct 2000 < http://

www.cyfc.umn.edu/ Media/tvviol.html>

Wheeler, Joe L. Remote Controlled. Hagerstown: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1993.

Winn, Marie. The Plug-In Drug. New York: Viking Penguin Inc, 1985.

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