Effects of Tv on Children

Effects Of TV on Children

"By the age of 18 a child will have watched 200,000 acts of violence on TV, including 40,000 murders" (Clark). What does this mean? Well, this means the television industry is showing an absurd amount of violence on TV. Television has been around for many years. In 1952, the first violent TV show aired on television and it was a hug success ("To much TV is harmful to kids"). Since then, the number of violent shows on television is increasing over the years. What makes Television different from the 1960s to present day is cable, satellite, hundreds of channels offered to the people, pay-per-view, and the invention of VCRs. The crime rate since television was introduced is going up six times faster than the population of the United States is growing. On television now of days during prime time television, a person will not go without seeing at least one act of violence (Smith). In today's world, children are the leading television viewers (Smith). Today in the United States their is growing problem with television violence and its influence on children.
First of all, corruption of the mind is a major problem that comes out of television (Talib). Children of young ages are easily influenced by what they see and hear. Many parents out there feel children are not influenced by what they see or hear on television and they are parents that feel their children are easily influenced by what they see. "I do not feel children are highly effect by what they see on television" (Smith). Well, in this time era, children are in front of their television sets for more then twenty-seven hours a week (Bauder). During this time a child spends in front of a television set, he or she will see and hear a million different things. "Most of the things children see are violence because ninety-five percent of television shows on television have at least one violent act in their airing" (Fitter-man). This heavily influences the way a child thinks. One way that television corrupts a mind of a child is by making them think that violence is a way to solve their problems. Television shows or movies have some sort of conflict involving the protagonist. To resolve the clash, some characters use violence to solve the clash. After a child views a character on television solve his or her problem with violence, the child will assume that he or she can act in the same manner to get rid of their problem.
Dr. Joseph Mercola researches the effect of television violence on young kids. After many years of researching, he has come to many conclusions about how children are effect by television violence. As one of his conclusion, he states, "Children who watch extensive hours of violent television will gradually accept violence as a way to solve their problems (Mercola). In his conclusion, Dr. Mercola is saying children who spend their time watching television will start to think violence is the best way to solve their problems and there is no better method. In the mid 1980s a thirteen year old by the name, Juan Valdez of California was having trouble with his best friend's dad. To get rid of his problem, he kicked, stabbed, beat and chocked the man with a dog chain, and then poured salt on his wounds (Florio). Later when the police asked Juan why he killed his best friend's dad this way, he responded, "I just seen it on TV" (Florio). This is one of many cases where children use what they see on television to solve their problems. In this case, it is clear as crystal that television violence corrupted the mind of Juan Valdez and helped him use violence he saw on TV. Further more, television violence corrupts the mind of children by causing them to think they can imitate the same stunts on television.
Another way TV violence alters the mind of children is by causing them to think they can do the same stunts on television in reality without hurting themselves (Smith). Many stunts on television are performed without a single scratch on the person performing the stunt. Many people think it is common sense for a person to realize that a person should not execute a stunt shown on television because they can be dangerous. Well, people have a point because the people living in this society should have common sense not to do any stunts shown on television because they are dangerous. When a child sees stunts performed on television they automatically think they can do a better job than what they see ("Children and TV Violence"). To prove to their friends they can do the same stunt without getting hurt, they try to attempt the stunt. When children try to duplicate a stunt from television in most cases, they severely hurt themselves (Hamilton).
Unfortunately, it was the same case for a boy from Florida. A boy by the name of Nicholas De Filippo was watching the "Tonight Show," which was hosted by Johnny Carson. On the day, DeFilippo was watching the show; a professional stuntman was going to hang Johnny Carson. After the stuntman wrapped the rope around Johnny Carson's neck, the stuntman hung Carson through a trapdoor, and surfaced unharmed. After viewing this stunt, Nick tired the same stunt at home trying to prove to his friends, he could do the same stunt without scratching himself. Sadly, while attempting this stunt Nick died hanging from his ceiling fan (Florio). When they interviewed one of Nick's friends, he stated, "All he was trying to do was show us that he can do the same trick without hurting himself" ("Children and TV violence"). This shows that television violence is a problem because it corrupts the minds of young youths in making them think that they can do the same stunts without hurting themselves. If there were no television violence, maybe Nick's life would not be taken away from him.
Second of all, television violence is not just corrupting the mind of children, but causing them to behave in an unacceptable manner (Clark). One way children behave in an unacceptable manner after watching television violence is by acting in an aggressive manner (Hamilton). When children watch extensive hours of television they start to copy what they see on television and start to act the same exact way (Bauder). Dr. Joseph Mercola researches children's' behavior and in his findings, he states, "Children who watch television violence and play violent video games are more likely to show high levels of aggression then those not exposed" (Mercola). In this quote, Dr. Mercola is stating that children act in a negative way when they watch television violence. In addition, he is saying that television violence is a factor on how children behave. This proves that children who watch television violence are more prone to act up and television violence is a negative impact on the children's behavior.
For example, the University of Pennsylvania took fifty random children about seven years old. They spilt the children into two groups of twenty-five. They took the two groups into a separate room and showed them a video tape. One of the groups watched a violent cartoon episode for an hour. The other group watched a non-violent cartoon also for an hour. After both the groups watched their cartoon show, the two groups separated into their own classroom where the children were supplied with paper, pencil, color pencils, markers, glue, scissors, and other classroom tools. The classroom with the children who watched a non-violent cartoon was in perfect condition. The children were sitting in the chairs and quietly coloring in their color books. However, classroom with the children who watched the violent cartoon show was trashed ("TV violence link to aggression"). After a Professor from the University of viewed the room with the children who watched the violent show, he described what he saw and said,
The room was completely destroyed. There was an incredible number of writing on the walls, glue all over the floor, writing on the desk, chairs broke, children hitting each other, but to describe what I saw in one I word, I would say the room was a catastrophe. ("TV violence link to aggression")
This study clearly shows that children who watch television violence act in a more aggressive manner then children who do not. In this study, children who watched a violent cartoon show acted as animals compared to those children who did not watch any violent cartoon show. Children who watch television violence behave in an aggressive manner.
Third of all, television violence is putting unrealistic pictures in their minds is by making them think that the world is out to get them (Jost). When children watch television, they identify with certain characters, victims, or the victimizers ("Children and TV"). When children start to identify with characters on television they start to think that, they will be attacked to because the person they identified with was just like them. When children start to think like this, it causes them to panic and get scared. They start to question everyone around them and break off their relationship with their parents and close friends because they cannot trust them. By doing this, children isolate themselves and have no friends or anyone to trust. After a while children start to think that there is no one in the world that likes them, so they end up committing suicide (Mcclaughlyn) This illustrates television violence is harmful to children because it causes them to think that everyone out there in the world is out to get them. By doing this children end up killing themselves.
There are many things parents can do to help their children not get affect by television violence. One of the things parents can do is limit the number of hours their children watch television. Instead of letting them sit in front of the TV and wasting their time way, they can go out and be active. They can join a club or sport where they can interact with other children and be social (Jost). By go out and getting involved, the children are using their time very wisely and their parents do not have to worry about their children being influenced negatively. One of the problems facing this solution is children are sometimes lazy. They are not willing to go out active but rather sit on the couch and do nothing but relax. If children are lazy, parents need to buckle down on them and get them involved in other activities besides sitting on the couch twenty-seven. Children also need to realize that their parents are not trying to stop them for watching TV and making their life miserable, but trying to help them get active and be a balanced person. Children need to know that there are other sources of fun then just sitting home and watching television all day.
Another solution parents can look at limiting the influence the effect of television violence is by adding a v-chip (Florio). A v-chip is a device that is made that allows parents to block programs that have rating that they feel is not suitable for their children (Florio). This is a great deceive in the sense; parents do not have to worry that their children are watching the programs that are not meant for them. By limiting, what children can watch is helping them stay away from too much violence. Limitation of the v-chip is not all TV shows have a rating, so the v-chip cannot pick it up and block it. Since the v-chip cannot block the unrated programs they can watch programs that their parents do not want them to. Still the solutions has problems because if the parents children go out to friends houses and their TV's do not have v-chips in them, the children can watch what they want. What the parents can do in this case is warn the parents of the child's friend and tell them you don't want them to watch violent programs. The v-chip is a very good start to let parents control what they watch and their children watch on TV, but it does have its limitations.
A vary highly rated solution is parents should sit down with their children and watch one of the programs their children watch (kids health). When the parents sit down with their child, they should point out the violence and tell their child if that act of violence was performed in real life someone would real get hurt. The parents job should be making their child understand what happens on TV is fake and those exact acts of violence in real life would hurt or even kill people. This is a very excellent solution because this allows parents to go one on one with their children and communicate to them how they feel about what they are watching on TV. By the parents drilling into their children what they see on television is harmful to intimate will help children to realize trying to react them will hurt them and others around them. Children will be less likely to commit for acts of violence they see on TV. One problem facing this solution is children do not listen to their parents. If the children do not listen to them, the parents are going to have a tough time getting through to them.
Another good solution parents can use to limit the violent programs their children watch is make them watch educational programs instead of cartoons and more (Silver). By getting children to watch educational programs they will not see as much violence as they would watching other shows. The education programs will teach children how to care for others, respect them and their belongs and useful everyday information. For this solution to be a good one, parents have to get their children watching educational programs at an early age because they are not old enough to question what parents tell them. If parents wait until their children have a problem with watching violent programs when they are teens, it will be hard to get them to watch educational programs because they are in that phase where they feel their parents are put on this earth to ruin their life.
A solution that might be out of the ordinary is parents not letting their children watch TV at all (Silver). This solution is somewhat absurd in the sense that TV does not show violence all the time. This could be a good solution for parents who feel their children are out of control and are being effect by anything they watch on TV. There is a good amount of programs that are viewable for children and parents should look at them. By cutting off the TV completely will be hurtful to the children because there are many good and educational programs that children can watch. Cutting of the TV completely is not the best choice. If parents are thinking about cutting off the TV completely they should think about removing the TV that is already in the rooms of the children. This could be a good place to start, but cutting out TV entirely from children's lives is ridiculous.
A solution parents might want to look at is letting the government regulate television. Letting the government stepping in will help limit the number of violent acts on TV. The problem facing this solution is the TV industry does not want the government to regulate them because it will cause major profit loss. The television industry is only out there to make a buck and do not care who they hurt as long as their books stay in the black. What parents can do is get their local congressman to start up a bill and to get the government taking action to help regulate. This solution is a long shoot since there are many lobbyist from the TV industry at the white house that have a lot of power and would kill any bill that would cause their company to lose money.
Overall, television violence is harmful to children. TV violence is a negative impact on children. TV violence corrupts the mind of children, causes them to behave in an aggressive manner, and puts unrealistic pictures of the world in their mind. TV violence is having a negative effective on the children of America. Parents cannot limit the influence of television violence on children, but with the combine effort of parents and children, television violence can have little or no influence on the children of America. Many people have their own views about television violence and in this quote by Bill Clinton; he shares his attitude about TV violence. "There is no question the cumulative impact TV violence has had on this country is a negative impact, but the impact it has on our children is even horrifying" (Clark). Throughout this quote Bill Clinton is saying the impact TV violence has on this country is not a good one and the impact it has on the children is even worse. Overall, TV violence has a negative impact on our society.