television
The world's most powerful teacher has been sitting on most living room floors across the United States for nearly sixty-five years. A classic American icon, the television can be found in 96% of homes in the country (Kalin). They can cost little but they serve three main purposes; to entertain, inform, and educate. However, the television began to have a new purpose in the early 1990's that still continues today; corrupting children. Television violence occurs in 25% of the programs on television, not including cable. In one hour of prime time television alone, the average person will see five to six violent acts, and twenty to twenty-five acts of violence on Saturday morning cartoons. As a result, television is teaching children that using violence to get what they want is normal and expected in today's society. If a child views and actor or actress getting punched and not reacting to it, the child will believe that violence does not hurt. Television violence is becoming a bigger issue in this country. The success of the entertainment industry has created quite a controversy over television violence and whether or not it has an effect on children (Mudore). With the average American spending
Other effects of watching too much television violence at an early age are lack of concentration, no usage of body muscles (hence the term couch potato), a decrease in a child's sensitivity towards others, lack of creative, original thinking, and eventually trouble with relationships. By the time a teenage graduates from high school, they will have witnessed over 200,000 acts of violence on the television alone. Television watchers put in less effort on school work, have poorer reading skills, are not as socially active, have fewer friends, have fewer hobbies, and are more likely to be overweight. Before a child even finishes elementary school, he will have seen over 20,000 murders (Dennings and Kalin). The most important aspect of violence in television is preventing it. There are many ways in which it can be prevented, but not often are many carried out. One such solution is to create conflict without killing. Michael Landon, who starred in and directed Little House on the Prairie, managed to do so in his programs. His goal was to put moral lessons in his show in an attempt to teach while entertaining. On the program The Brady Bunch the conflicts are usually personal and moral matters among the characters. Although some violence does occur in these programs, the theme is not the action, but rather its consequences (Kalin). In research studies performed on children it was discovered that aggression, academic problems, unpopularity with peers, and violence feed off each other. This promotes violent behavior in the children. The child watches violent programming, which causes aggression. The combination of aggression and continued television viewing lead to poor academic standings as well as unpopularity (Kalin). These can cause more aggression and a cycle begins to spin. In another piece of research children who watch a lot of violent television were compared to children who don't. The results were that the children who watched more violent television were more likely to agree that it's okay to hit someone, but only if it were for a good reason. The other group learned that problems can be solved passively, through discussion. http://www.nottv.org/NCTV/020/images/communics.com. April 20, 1999. Dennings, Adam. "Conflict Resolution." Online. Ava
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Approximate Word count = 1534
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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