Within a span of a few short years, violent television and video games have increased in popularity dramatically. Yet, the voices of parent's concerned about their affects have also grown louder. In today's society, an average of five or six violent incidents occur every hour on daytime television. And what about cartoons, the most watched shows by children? Cartoon programming contains the most violence, portraying about eighteen acts of aggression per hour. Recent studies suggest that by the time a child is twelve years old, the average child will have witnessed a hundred thousand acts of violence on television. But, not only is violence prevalent in television, video games are becoming increasingly violent, with such titles as; "Mortal Kombat", "Quake", and "Tekken". However, the main question on the minds of parents as well as child psychologists is what sort of affect do watching violent television and playing violent video games have on children. One major social psychologist states plainly that, "evidence suggests that violence on television is potentially dangerous, in that it serves as a model for behavior - especially for children" (Aronson, 1995, p.265) Differing

There are four major theories held by psychologists about media violence and aggression: arousal, social learning, disinhibition, and catharsis. The first, arousal, promoted by P. H. Tannebaum, holds that exposure to television violence increases aggression because violence increases excitation, or "arouses" viewers. "Increased aggression follows when it is appropriate as a response, which is almost always the case in television-and-aggression experiments." (Tannebaum & Zillman, 1975) Second, the social learning violence theory, developed by Bandura, proposed that behaviors are learned by observing others. Bandura claims that children who watch television acquire behaviors observed from television programs, "What has been clearly demonstrated is that children can acquire aggressive ways of behaving from television and will exhibit these aggressive responses in play behavior." (Bandura, 1973) Third, the disinhibition hypothesis, which suggests that television violence can lead to increased violent behavior because it weakens inhibitions against such behavior, the so-called "de-sensitizing" response. Fourth, and last, the aggression reduction hypothesis (catharsis), argued by Feshbach, states that under specific conditions exposure to television and other media violence will reduce subsequent aggression. "One such condition is said to occur when viewers are deficient in the ability to invent aggressive fantasies, the entertainment of which Feshbach hypothesizes is helpful in self-control of aggressive impulses. Television violence, it is argued, supplies material for such fantasies, thus reducing aggressive behavior." (Comstock & Lidsey, 1975, p. 27-28) Sigmund Freud agreed with this idea, and said "Unless pe

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