Aggression on Television
There is so much aggression on television. It is not only in young adult and adult sitcoms, but also in children's cartoons. A statistic reveals that by the time children graduate school, they will have spent 20,000 hours in front of the television set (Troppe, 1). Television viewing ranks 2nd only to sleeping as the nation's number one pastime for children (Troppe, 2). According to Roger Fransecky, a psychologist and consultant for CBS, "children in this country are estimated to have watched between 5000 and 8000 hours of television before they enter kindergarten". (Troppe, 2). "A survey conducted by Joan Watkins, author of Breaking the TV Habit, revealed the following facts about television and the middle class household: (1) most families own a minimum of three and a maximum of five televisions; (2) at least one set in each home is in color; (3) the sets are situated in vital living areas such as the living room, kitchen, bedrooms, and family room; (4) families seldom watch television together; (5) often parents do not know what their children watch; and (6) three-quarters of the people polled in the survey would be unwilling to go without television for a week even as an experiment. These sim
ple facts lend themselves to some general assumptions: (1) TV is a lonely recreation. Children don't have to pick and choose programs, sharing the set with the parents and siblings. With several sets in the house, a child finds one that isn't being used and turns it on; (2) many parents, therefore fail to monitor their children's television intake" (Troppe, 2). Television desensitizes. We learn to accept violence. We see all these brutalities on television and then when you see it in real life there is no response. There are so many shows out there that display acts of violence, sex, and inappropriate language like it doesn't matter. But it does. People watch these shows and think that it is okay to do these things because people on television did them. Some such shows are Dawson's Creek, Friends, Will & Grace, and many others. One study said, "shows for teens also have the most sexual innuendo, with 'a lot' of such references in 19.2 percent of programs" (Wetzstein, 2). Just the other night, I was watching Friends and the character, Monica, was talking about having sex with Chandler so she could get pregnant and Chandler didn't want to because Monica was mad at him and she put on an act like she wasn't mad at him so that he would have sex with her. Also I watched Dawson's Creek and Joey's friend Dawson came back from California for a visit and they ended up having sex and later found out that Dawson had a girlfriend in California. Joey was very hurt by this and was fighting with Dawson. These two shows come on prime time television just when children are through with their homework and done eating dinner and are ready to watch the television. Is this what parents want their children to watch? And if the child has a TV in their bedroom, how does the parent monitor what the child watches if they are not in the room with them. On Friends, I have heard them use the words "bitch", "slut", "ass" and "dammit". If children watch this, they could very well be using these words because they heard it on TV. This is not appropriate for a young child. Especially on regular TV channels, this kind of thing is expected on cable television. We can monitor better if this kind of behavior came on cable television. You could just not have cable or not have cable in just the children's bedrooms. Also on these shows you see people getting into fights. Children see this and think that it is okay to fight. This is the social-cognitive learning theory taking place. According to Albert Bandura, social cognitive learning theory holds that when we see the behavior of a model being rewarded, we are likely to i
Some common words found in the essay are:
Albert Bandura, TV Habit, Researchers PBS, California Joey, Finally Henry, Oswald Nickelodeon, Friends Grace, Days Lives, Aggression Television, Rainbow Canyon, acts aggression, children watch, wetzstein 2, violence harsh language, harsh language, violence harsh, wetzstein 1, children's television, learning theory, troppe 2, harsh language sexual, children acting, parents children watch, social-cognitive learning theory,
Approximate Word count = 1772
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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