The Negative Effects of TV Vio

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The Negative Effects of TV Violence On Children

The effects of television on children have been researched many times over the years. This is because parents and society in general, have found that television effects the way that children think, and act in some way. Most feel that children's programming is not as educational as some broadcasting companies say they are.

Television is the largest form of public media to ever exist. But it was not always this way. Television in the 1950's was very different from the television that we know today. When television was first created, it battled the newspaper, radio, and movies (Klapper 1968, 89). To be violent is human nature, but when television was introduced to the America, the American public feared that depictions of crime and violence on television would lead children to become more aggressive in their day to day life (Klapper 1968, 87). Now in the present, many studies have been conducted to test the theories of psychologists, sociologists, and even mothers and fathers (White 1999, 4)

The following research that has been conducted will hopefully help humans learn the effects of television violence on children, positive or negative. The data has been collected from

Although this research helped us find some answers to why people watch violent programs, and if children are actually being exposed to this type of programming, and if they are, is it having a negative effect on them, we are still unable to write anything in stone because of the many limitations of the study. The nature of a questionnaire has many problems itself, such as the possibility that the subject or person being asked may interpret a question wrong, therefore throwing the results off. Also, with only 30 subjects, it is difficult to determine whether there is a definite pattern in the answer given, or if it is just a coincidence. It is also difficult to get a wide variety of people from different backgrounds, and it would be hard to determine whether certain types of lifestyles have also effected how a person thinks and reacts to violence on television. This subject is also very difficult to determine a definite answer. Thousands of studies have been conducted to determine an answer, each one arriving at a different conclusion. In the late fifties, surveys were commonly used as a means of research (Klapper 1968, 87). The populations being studied were children who did watch a lot of television, and children who did not watch a lot of television (Klapper 1968, 87). These studies typically resulted in two sets of findings, either there would be no difference between the two groups, or the group that were heavy consumers of television would act different, but it was not a cause of the media. Another classic study that was conducted in the late fifties (by a psychologist named Bailyn), showed us that boys prefer certain types of violence over others (Klapper 1968, 87). For instance, violence that uses exaggerated motions, glamorized killing, or comedic lines throughout a fight, may tell a child that no one really gets hurt while fighting, and that fighting is funny and exciting (Levine 1998, 92).

When it was asked, "Do you use violence to solve problems?",

When asked, "Did you grow up watching violent programs?" the results show that the majority of the kids and teens said yes or some, while the 20+ crowd seemed to answer more to the 'not really' or 'no' side. This is caused by two reasons, one being that there were not as many violent programs while these people were young, and second, if there were violent programs, they were intended for adults, and it was seen that these programs be played later in the day to ensure that children do not become exposed to the violence. But times have changed. A family's values have vastly changed over the past 40 years, and this can be pinpointed by looking at a couple of factors. One, is that woman have become a lot more liberated since the 1950's, and this has meant that more women posses jobs outside of their homes, which means that children have more time away from their parents, which means more freedom to do what they please. Also, due to faster, and more economical cars, parents are able to travel a greater distance to get to work, which also means more times away from their children, again, leaving them to do what they wish. Even though we are led to believe that only children are affected by violence, we must keep in mind that by the age of eighteen, the average television viewer will have seen two hundred thousand acts of violence on television alone (Broder 2000, 16), so even teenagers are constantly being exposed to violence on television. However, it is known that children must learn by experience (Cantor 1998, 94), and the older a child gets, the easier it becomes for the child to distinguish between fantasy and reality (Cantor, 1998, 95), but they may continue to be frightened - and sometimes more frightened - by realistic portrayals (Cantor 1998, 95).

surprisingly only one person answered 'yes' and only three answered 'sometimes'. However, the people that replied that way were all male. It is commonly known that since men and physically bigger

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Approximate Word count = 2794
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)

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