Final Paper TV violence and Children

AUGUST 3
Children usually spend their time with many types of media, including computer, music, video games, videotapes, and television. Although television is most common used medium, viewing time varies with age. The average American kid set to watch television everyday is from four to five hours a day. although some studies suggests that children two years and older shouldn’t watch more than two hours of TV a day and children under two years shouldn’t have TV time at all according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
Have you ever thought about violence programs on television and how they could affect children? Television is one of the most significant inventions in the world it was invented by Philo Farnsworth an American inventor. Television is always a debatable subject since it was invented. TV violence has been a huge impact on children since its early days starting with Superman or a Mouseketeer and passing through Ninja Turtles on Harley’s, Power Rangers until today's life with Family Guy. It impact on children could be seen in many ways, such as in a child’s, behavior and how aggressive a child becomes, in how a child becomes less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others, and in how children become more fearful of the world around them . In fact it's our responsibility to protect our children from TV dangerous and we could do it by shearing the responsibility between parents, TV industry and policymakers and missing someone of them would lead to incomplete solution or would help children for short period of time.

Television violence causes negative behavior in children, however; television can be a powerful influence to young viewers in our society. Unfortunately, much of today’s television programming is very violent. Many researchers like scientists, pediatricians, and child researchers in many countries have studied to find out what it is about television violence that makes it such a big affect on the way kids act and behave. Sometimes, children think that is a normal thing in our real life, by watching only a single violent program, which can increase aggressiveness on children and become violent, aggressive, and vicious.
Watching violence programs on television affect children behavior and make them become more aggressive. In addition 15 years study that use released by researcher from university of Michigan has shown that children who watch violent TV shows in their childhood are most likely turn out to become aggressive adults.

According to Lauren Outerbridge who wrote in her article “kick first talk later”, “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is the most violent program ever produced for young children, averaging 200 acts of violence per hour, according to Lebo and Keiser. Tellingly, "children committed seven times as many acts of aggression in play after viewing one episode of the Power Rangers show, as compared to children who didn't see the show."

So that just an example of what could a violent program could do to children and how fast and easy children could get affected. From my own experience with children and how aggressive they got after watching a single violent act, I have witnessed my nephew several times and I discovered that he immediately after watching a violent act like kicking he respond by doing the same act and try to hit his little sister.

In an article by Barbara J. Wilson, she analyses the part of rewards and punishments in television violence and she came out with that “violence that glamorized or rewarded poses a risk for viewers, but so does violence that simply goes unpunished. Studies show that rewarded violence or violence that is not overtly punished encourages the learning of aggressive attitudes and behaviors (Bandura, 1965; Bandura, Ross, & Ross, 1961, 1963; Paik& Comstock, 1994). In contrast, portrayals of punished violence can decrease the chances that viewers will learn aggression rewards and punishments can influence audience fear as well. Viewers who watch violence go unpunished are more anxious and more pessimistic about the consequences of real life violence (Bryant, Carveth, & Brown, 1981).


Children may become less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others. Viewing violence encourages children to see other people as enemies rather than as individuals with thoughts and feelings like themselves. Children who cannot put themselves in others' shoes may become less desirable playmates. One perfect example that supports this idea is the Columbine High School tragedy in which two young men opened fire, detonated bombs, and killed several school mates and teachers. Two of the many causes for their rampage were watching the movie the Matrix and not feeling any remorse for their predicted actions. Because the boys were so used
To witnessing violence in television, movies, and games, they did not pity the people they were going to hurt. Also, some people argue that TV violence only reflects on our society and is okay to watch. Children model both the positive and negative behaviors that they see, so since parents are their children's most important teachers, they need to regulate the period of time a child watches TV. Children watching violent television view the acceptance of aggressive behavior, even if this aggressive behavior is performed by the good guys. Children learn that the way to resolve conflict is through fighting. Children need to learn that violence is not the preferred
Method of conflict resolution. Parents of today need to take a more active role in teaching their children how to resolve conflict and to get along with others.

According to a study by national television violence “Negative consequences of violence are not often portrayed. Most violent portrayals do not show the victim experiencing any serious physical harm or pain at the time the violence occurs: 47 percent of violent interactions show no harm to victims; 58 percent show no pain. Only 16 percent of all programs portray long-term negative repercussions of violence, such as psychological, financial, or emotional harm”. Actually that appear to be a real and that why children get the idea that violence doesn’t hurt for example in Columbus, Ohio, a fourteen years old boy killed his younger brother when trying to reproduce a scene from “ dirty Harry” he had seen on TV. The fourteen years old didn’t realize that the bullet coming from his father’s gun was “for real” because he thought it wouldn’t harm as he seen on TV. as a matter of fact children are getting the idea since their early years that violence does not hurt through what they watch in their everyday life and it as it appear that more 50% of the time those programs don’t show any kind of pain, which has a huge impact on children feeling of pain.

Also according to the same study by national television violence has found that Television violence is usually not explicit or graphic. Most is presented without any close-up focus on aggressive behaviors and without showing any blood and gore. Less than 3 percent of violent scenes feature close-ups on the violence; only 15 percent contain blood and gore. Explicit or graphic violence contributes to desensitization and can enhance fear. That is why young people don’t think that violence does hurt they knew by what they watch that in most scenes people who get attacked didn’t feel any pain in most cases specially the main character of the TV program. Even good guys in television programs when you watch them in violent actions they most time got attacked by group of bad guys, but the good guys always beat the bad guys regardless of how hard is it to do so in real life and for adults they already knew that is just a something that can’t happen in real time. However, for kids it could be for them a reflect to the real life because their brain development is still not completed and everything for them is acceptable.

Children become more fearful of the world around them. Did you know that children programs on television contain five times more violence than the average prime time hour? Children's natural anxieties may become magnified by watching TV in which the world is a dangerous place where violence triumphs over peace. Since a child's mind is still developing during his early years, watching too much television may limit his potential by confusing him about what is right, wrong, or fake.

Maurine Doerken in her book teaching and television” has mentioned a study by a communication theorist George Gerbner that says “George Gerbner believes excessive violence on TV may give viewers what he calls a “mean-world syndrome.” In other words, they see the aggressive TV content and take it as an indication that the world in general is a hostile and unpleasant place. Or, they may even become fearful of life itself and going outside. Indeed, Gerbner has discovered that people who watch over four hours of TV each day do in fact think the world is more dangerous than light viewers …” children can get affected easily and that is because of their innocent and they believe in anything like if they saw a program and the actor died in scene, they didn’t realize that the same actor will appear again in different program. However, they will think that the actor is died for good.

Moreover Maurine Doerken in her book “teaching and television” gives some examples about how television violence has affected young people such as, nine years old boy was afraid to show his father his report card because of all the bad marks. The boy told his father they should give his teacher a box of poisoned candy for Christmas the boy’s comment, it’s easy . . . they did it on television last week.. A man wanted to kill his wife, so he gave her candy with poison in it, and she didn’t know who did it.”

One might object here that television violence has nothing to do with the children negative behavior and that negative behavior is coming from something else and what have been broadcasting is reflecting the life of American, which means that television does not create new ideas or create the violence. In addition arguing that feeling less sensitive to the pain is a cause of television violence and that is untrue claim. Furthermore the life of American and the crime rates are responsible for the fearful of children from the world around their, but Responding to these claims would be by giving an example of an incident that happened in 1979 a 16 years old school girl, Brenda Spicer, was apprehended in January, 1979, for killing two people and wounding eight with a gun. It was reported that Brenda liked watching violent TV programs and seeing people get shot. Also Arguing that feeling less sensitive to the pain is a cause of television violence, is untrue claim and all researchers have agree that feeling less sensitive is a cause of watching violence on television. Even though the crime in United States might has a connected with fearful of children, it appear from children researchers through out the years that TV has become a nightmare for children who watch violence programs.


In conclusion, television violence huge effect on children has become a fact. The most noticeable effects on children are on children behavior and aggressiveness, on children less sensitive of pain and suffering of others, and how screed children are from the world around them. I believe that children are being targeting from an invisible force and it main goal is to make those children fall in love with violence programs because people who produce those kind of programs didn’t just throw their money in air and wait to see if those children would like their programs. However they knew exactly what children are attracted to. Protecting children from television violence and it effect is a duty and everyone must do something to protect them. Industry, policymakers, and parents are responsible for finding solutions to help children and missing one part of those three wouldn’t help finding an absolute solution, so working with each other would be the best for all parties. Finally feeling that children been the only victims of television violence is what made me decide to write a research paper on television and children.

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Work citation

Barrie, Gunter. Violence on television: distribution, form, context, and themes. Mahwah, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates, 2003.

Children and media violence: yearbook from the UNESCO International Clearinghouse on Children and Violence on the Screen. Goteborg: The UNESCO International Clearinghouse on Children and Violence on the Screen, 1998.

Doerken, Maurine. Classroom combat: teaching and television. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Educational Technology Publications, c1983.

Kaufman, Ron. “TV violence and children’’. “Turn off your TV”. 2004.
http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/healtheducation/violencechildren/violencechildren.html.

Outerbridge, Laura. “TV's lesson: kick first; talk later - TV violence and children”. Insight on the News. March 25, 1996.

.">TV violence and kids." Education Digest 62.1 (Sep. 1996): 23. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO.