Children and TelevisionThe children of America spend their time on many different activities.
One of the most time consuming activities is watching television. Televisionplays a large role in the social and emotional development of children today. One good quality that television has is that it conveys information andhappenings around the world that they may not otherwise know about, but somepeople have been questioning whether television does more harm than good. Manyhave been analyzing what affect violence in adult shows as well as children’sshows may have on children. Most parents allow their children to watch so called “kid’s shows”without even thinking about what might be contained within them. How many timeshas a certain hunter been seen hunting a certain “wascally wabbit”? Most peoplewould say “how can a cartoon about a man hunting affect a child?” At first itmay seem that it has no effect, but, looking closer, it is easy to see that BugsBunny has many human traits.
Two of these traits are speaking English andwalking upright. Something else that adds to this is that sometimes childrencannot make the distinction between fantasy and reality. Quickly a cartoonabout a man hunting a rabbit can turn into a story of murder. Another cartooncharacter that may harm children is Yosimite Sam.
When he becomes angry, hebegins to fire his pair of guns into the air and at other characters. Thiscould cause children to act violently to appease their anger. This includeshitting and throwing things. This is an extreme view of the situation, but whois to say that at least part of it is not true?Children see violence everyday in their cartoons, but what about showsthat they watch in which people star. These shows will more than likely causemore violence than cartoons would. While watching a show such as “MightyMorphin Power Rangers” a child sees almost 30 minutes of non-stop fighting.
Theshow also has a fantasy story that appeals to children. After watching the show,a child may become bored because the reality of the television show is moreinteresting. The child then imitates what was seen on television. This iswhere the actual violence may begin. Adult shows and movies that are seen bychildren could have even worse effects than children’s shows.
In one documentedcase, a Californian boy that was seven years old watched a movie one night. Inthe movie, a man put glass into soup that a colleague of his was to eat. Thevery next night, the boy put crushed glass into the stew that his family was toeat for supper. He said that he wanted to know if it would do the same thing inreal life that it did on television.
The danger with violence on televisionbegins with imitation and escalates with experimentation. This is an extremecase, but it is a case. Television violence is a major problem in our society. Some people areworking to end it, others are simply ignoring it, hoping that will somehow goaway, and some people are trying to tell America that what a child sees on TVwill not affect him. We must work to eliminate the problem now. Watchingcartoons on television may not make him grow up to be a cold-blooded murderer,but the total impact of witnessing repeated acts of violence may slowly causeour society to become more and more aggressive until there are too many killingsto list on the news and watching one while you walk down the street is a commonoccurrence.
We will never actually be able to tell what the ultimate impact ofviolence on television is until it actually happens, but will that be too latefor us to recover from it? Only time will tell…Music and Movies
