Television Violence
Does television violence have a negative effect on today's youth? Children are exposed to more media today than ever before. Children often imitate what they see around them. There is research that suggests that children who are exposed to high levels of media violence are more likely to be aggressive and less likely to solve problems effectively. Children watch an average of twenty-eight hours of television per week. By the time a child is twelve-year old, he/she will have seen over eight thousand murders on television. A prime time show includes three to five violent acts per hour, while a Saturday morning cartoon shows between twenty and twenty-five per hour (Tepperman 1). It has been proven that a child who is exposed to extreme violence has been rated to be very poor by their teachers and peers. They have fewer problem-solving skills and are statistically more likely to become involved in a crime as teenagers and young adults (Beckman 1). Children are visual learners and are highly susceptible to the environment surrounding them. They model both the positive and negative behavior that they see. A child who sees a lot of violence views aggressive behavior as acceptable. Even when the "good guys" per
Although some parents don't have time to watch their children during the day, they need to know there are alternative methods of blocking out television programs. If you prefer a technological method, the most advanced system is the V-Chip". The V-Chip is part of the Telecommunication Act of 1996. This act was promoted by President Clinton and requires all television sets over thirteen inches to include this chip. It's a device that would allow parents to block violent and indecent programming. The V-Chip is a combination of different technologies. All television programs have the ability to carry extra-encoded information, such as closed captioning, "CC". Parents will then be able to select the programs viewed by their children based on each individual show's ratings. The shows are rated similarly to those of the motion picture industry. Attached to each shoe is one of the following rating: TV-G (General Audience suitable for all children), TV-PG (Parents strongly cautioned; material most parent would find unsuitable for children), and TV-M (Mature Audience; not recommended for children under 17 ). Then there are two special categories for programs specifically aimed at young children: TV-Y (designed for all children), and TV-Y7 (designed for all children under 7). Every major network has attached a sub-rating of V (violence), S (sexual situations), L (inappropriate language), D (suggestive dialog), or FV (fantasy violence). Based on those ratings a parent can block out any of the rated show by their code number. If a child tries to access any of the blocked shows the screen will be blacked out and they will nor receive a picture. This allows parents to decrease the number of inappropriate shows that could be viewed (Price 59-61). There have been several cases when a young child has done something worn and his/her response for doing it was simply answered that they has seen it on television before. For example, a sixteen-year-old by in New York broke into a cellar, and when questioned by the police why he was wearing gloves the boy said, "I saw on television that if you wear gloves you don't leave any fingerprints". Another example, in Alabama, a nine-year-old received a bad report card. He suggested sending the teacher poisoned candy as a way of revenge as he has seen it done on television the day before. Also in California, a seven-year-old ground up glass fragment into a lamb stew that his family was having for dinner. When questioned, his response was. " I wanted to see if it would have the same results in real life as it did on television"(Effects 1). In the movie The Program, it has a scene in which college football players lay down in the middle of the highway, so they could prove their courage. After the release to his mo
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1856
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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