Through what they experience on television,
children are forced into adulthood at too young of an age. The innocence of
youth is lost when children stare endlessly at a screen displaying the horrors
of murder, rape, assault, devastating fire, and other natural disasters.
Although these are occurrences in everyday life, things adults have grown
accustomed to hearing about, children do not have the maturity level to deal
with these tragedies appropriately. Children’s behavior changes because they
become desensitized to the violence. There are many preventative techniques
that can be applied to ensure that negativity on television will not interfere
with a child’s development.
Children see violent acts on television and make an attempt to process it, and
in doing so, their innocence is lost. According to Dr. David Elkind, president
emeritus, National Association for the Education of Young Children, “Television
forces children to accommodate a great deal and inhibits the assimilation of
material. Consequently, the television child knows a great deal more than he or
she can ever understand. This discrepancy between how much information children
have and what they can process is the major stress of television.” (160)
Children’s minds are not fully developed; therefore, they can not be expected
to understand the violence on television.
The media, specifically television, has become more and more violent, in not
all too subtle ways, exposing many children to behaviors not appropriate to a
young audience. Remember “the Menendez brothers, who ruthlessly shot their
parents as they ate ice cream and watched TV in their family room, planted in
children’s minds the worst possibility -- that a parent could die violently at
the hands of a child.” (Medved, et. al. 243) Seeing the violence, hearing about
it, watching news reports about violent acts committed by real people,
especially other children, affects the viewer negatively. Children can not
relate to what they see when they are so young, making the act of watching
violent television extremely questionable. Children should not know about
murder and rape; however according to Gloria Tristani, Commissioner for the
Federal Communications Commission, by the time they finish elementary school,
children have witnessed 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence. (Tristani
website) Children should not be allowed to view such behavior as they are far
too young to comprehend the severity of what they see.
Younger children are more susceptible to the impact of television violence in
part because they spend more time in front of the set. “Children ages 2 to 5
watch about 28 hours of television each week, or almost 4 hours per day.”
(Black, et. al. 317) Older children watch about four hours less per week. These
younger children are fascinated with a media that does not require the ability
to read or decipher in a way they do not know how; therefore, they spend more
time watching television than older school age children. “Television has
somewhat less appeal for the adolescent who has the mental ability to extend
his or her senses with radio or print.” (Elkind 73)
One of the most disconcerting facts of modern life is the abundance of wasted
time spent watching mindless television programs. “...at the end of the usual
life span, the average person will have endured more than ten uninterrupted
years of television, day and night, with no breaks for the potty, no sleep, no
work, no school. Ten years of staring at a cathode-ray tube, looking at images
that for the most part one doesn’t control and never chose.” (Medved, et. al.
19)
“A US News & World Report survey of voters reveals that 91% ‘think media
mayhem contributes to real-life violence’, while 54% of the public thinks
violence in entertainment media ‘is a major factor that contributes to the
level of violence in America’. But only 30% of those with the power to control
it, the Hollywood elite, agree.” (Medved, et. al. 28) Because the general
population appears to have little say in how much the media portrays violent
behavior, it is important to take a step back and evaluate what the children
are actually exposed to. It is important that parents play a direct role in
deciding what children are able to view on television. This is the best method
of preventing negative reactions from watching the violence that the media
portrays. A filmmaker and ESPN2 correspondent from the Atlanta area believes
that “parents play an important role; without them, they [children] have
nothing to listen to except TV and movies. Those medias were not made to teach
your children and take care of them. They are entertainment art.” (Nathanson
interview) By establishing ground rules at a very young age, children are
taught lifelong lessons that will stay with them all through life. Parents can
not always be where their children are, but by instilling safe choices in them
from the beginning, when children are left to decide for themselves, they have
a foundation to base their choice on.
Psychological research has shown that children become less sensitive to pain
and suffering of others, more fearful of the world around them, and are more
likely to behave in aggressive or harmful ways toward others. Children who
watch a lot of television are less bothered by the violence they see on
television than those children who watch only a little. This shows that
children are desensitized to the pain and suffering they witness on television.
A study, conducted at Pennsylvania State University, compared preschool
children who had watched violent cartoons and some children who had watched
shows with no violent behavior. Results show that children who witnessed
cartoons with inappropriate behavior were more likely to fight with their
playmates, argue, hit, and disobey compared with other children who were more
patient, agreeable, and behaved.
Two gang members, Sidewinder and Bopete, provide a strong example of the impact
of television violence on today’s youth with a conversation discussing guns and
bullets based on knowledge of a television program.
“’Hey, remember that movie we saw on TV? Where the guy shot the lamppost and
made a big ole hole? Well, I wanna get me one of them.’
‘I don’t remember what kinda bullets they was. The long kind.’
‘Yeah, and fat.’
Bopete snaps his fingers, grinning hard all over his face. ‘Oh wait! I got it -
thirty-thirty! Went boom! Man, them booms made you happy. Boom! Boom!’” (Medved
60)
A study conducted on the effect of television violence on young children’s moral
reasoning concluded that children judged justified violence as right or in the
middle. (Medved 246) This is explained by the abundance of fantasy violence in
children’s programming. A common theme in Saturday morning cartoons revolves
around a hero and a villain. The hero generally captures or eliminates the
villain by using forceful, violent tactics. Children witness the villain, who
is judged to be evil, being punished forcefully by the hero, who is perceived
to represent justice. By watching the “good guy” beat up the ‘bad guy’,
children distinguish this type of violence as positive behavior. The moral
reasoning study argues that “young children are more apt to focus on the rules
that are provided by authority figures, the outcome that an act has for the
perpetrator, and the presence or absence of punishment resulting from the act.”
(Krcmar 608)
Parents must watch at least one episode of every show their children watch. An
educated decision can then be made on the appropriateness for the respective
age groups. Any television program with too much violence or negative behavior
should be banned from small children. Children can also be restricted to
educational or completely nonviolent programming. Lock-Out! is a specially
designed combination lock that can be inserted in the prongs of the television
plug, preventing children from sneaking in television time without permission.
Using this product gives parents more control over what children watch when
there is no one around to supervise them. (Lock-Out website)
Watching programs with children enhances communication between parent and
child. Children are able to ask questions about what they see and parents are
able to point out behaviors on television that are questionable, and help to
reassure children that what they see is not real and should not be emulated.
Many times, children do not enjoy watching the programs they see on television,
but they do not respond by turning the set off simply because it is there to be
watched. Be open with children about what may bother them so that they feel
that television is not the only activity available; there are nonviolent
programs available to them as well.
Teach children about consequences of their actions. Many violent programs fail
to properly emphasize the negative aftereffects of violent acts. Cartoons
especially leave out the resulting legal and moral repercussions of violent
behavior. Providing other activities for children, besides watching television,
is also a step to take. Making a list of games to play, books to read, homework
or chores to do, gives children ideas to keep themselves occupied without
relying on cartoons and sitcoms to entertain them.
Teach children alternatives to violent behavior. Emphasize proper communication
skills, mediation, and patience. Showing children how to act in a nonviolent
manner is important because children learn from their role models. At a very
young age, the parents are the primary sources for learning. Children imitate
what they see and hear, and will respond positively when they witness positive
behavior from their role models.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 requires that V-Chip technology be installed
in all new television sets sold in the United States. (Benton website) This new
technology permits individuals to block programming based on the level of
violence or other characteristics. In conjunction with this new technology, the
television industry implemented a program that provides a rating for network
shows, allowing parents to gain further control over what children watch on
television. These new ratings include special guidelines for younger viewers.
The rating system contains two parts, an age based rating and a content based
rating. The content ratings list violence, language, and nudity. The age based
ratings have two ratings geared towards young children, TV-Y, for all children
and TV-Y7, for children over the age of seven. The ratings appear in the upper
left hand corner of the television screen for the first fifteen seconds of a
program, giving parents a forewarning about any programming that children
should not be exposed to. (Eisenstock 4 & 5)
This V-Chip and ratings technology is an important step in preventing unwanted
viewing of violence. It is especially helpful when children are left to choose
a show to watch. By setting the allowable programming to only TV-Y, it is less
likely that children will witness any violent acts on television. Because the
ratings are determined by show producers and the network, it is important for
parents to remain in an active role in participating in program viewing with
children. There are times when violent acts are missed in rating judgments. If
a show is rated TV-Y7, a parent needs to judge the program and make a decision
to accept the rating as accurate or disregard it as incorrect.
“...While prime-time TV contains about 5 violent acts per hour...there are over
20 violent acts per hour on children's programming.” (Tristani website)
Television violence can cause negative behavioral and sociological changes in
young children. Violence on television is all too common, so parents must take
action and monitor what shows are to be watched. There are methods available to
assist parents, some of which include the V-Chip and the new ratings system for
network programs. By preventing children from witnessing violence on
television, parents are helping to eliminate the desensitization that happens
from witnessing such wrongdoing.
Bibliography
Black, Jay, and Jennings Bryant. Introduction to Media Communication. Iowa:
Brown, 1995.
Eisenstock, Bobbie, PhD., and Cathryn C. Borum. A Parent’s Guide to the TV
Ratings and V-Chip. Washington: Media, 1995.
Elkind, David. The Hurried Child. Reading: Addison, 1981.
Krcmar, Marina, and Patti M. Valkenburg. “A Scale to Assess Children’s Moral
Interpretations of Justified and Unjustified Violence and Its Repercussions.”
Communication Research Oct. 1999: 608-635.
“Lock-Out Blocks Media Violence and Provides internet Safety for Your
Children.” Lock-Out! n. pag. 6 June 2000
Medved, Diane, PhD., and Michael Medved. Saving Childhood. New York:
HarperCollins, 1998.
Medved, Michael. Hollywood VS. America. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
Nathanson, Ian. Telephone interview. 6 June 2000.
Tristani, Gloria. “Children and TV Violence Speech.” FCC 11 Feb. 1998: n. pag.
2 June 2002