Does Television Violence affect behavior in Children?

There have been many arguments to date that have involved television and whether or not violence on television shows affects children in negative ways. This has always been and will always be a very sensitive and touchy subject for all parties involved.

There are various view points on this subject and whether or not violence on television affects children. The national Institute of Mental Health reported almost twenty years ago that “television violence could be dangerous for children” and that “violent programs on television lead to aggressive behavior by children and teenagers who watch those programs”. The American Psychological Association gathered this and other information from multiple agencies and stated that based on this research that there are three shown major effects of seeing violence on television:

1.) Children may become less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others.
2.) Children may be more fearful of the world around them.
3.) Children may be more likely to behave in aggressive or harmful ways toward others.

“An American child will have watched over 8000 murders on television by the time they reach twelve years of age”. This information is an estimate from the Cultural Indicators Project headed by George Gerbner an advocate for committees to vote on television content. Gerbner argues that “the alienating culture of television has replaced other forms of communication the once tied the family and community together”. According to the American Psychological Association parents have a lot of power to moderate the influence of television aggression on their children.
Some examples are:

1.) Limiting the number of hours of television viewing.
2.) Watch an episode of your child’s show and talk with them about it.
3.) Ban offensive programs and restrict what they are allowed to watch to something that they feel is more beneficial, such as documentaries, educational shows and so on.
4.) Encourage other activities.
5.) Encourage children to watch programs that demonstrate caring, helping, and cooperation.

There are many opposing arguments to the fact that television violence can influence behavior in children and teens. Mike Males, author of Stop Blaming Kids and TV, states that “television violence bears little relation to real behavior”. He writes that Japanese and European kids behold media as graphically brutal as that which appears on American screens, but seventeen-year-olds in those countries commit murder rates lower than those of American seventy-year-olds. Males, also writes that youth’s in different parts of the U.S. are exposed to the same media but display drastically different violence levels. According to this article, America’s biggest explosion in felony violent crime is not street crime among minorities or teens of any color, but domestic violence among aging, mostly white baby boomers. The department of Health and Human Services reported that 565,000 serious injuries reported in 1993 were inflicted from parents on their children. Males writes that between the eighteen years a child is born and graduates high school there will be fifteen million case of real violence in American homes and that of that fifteen million there will be forty thousand death’s to children.

Tim Goodman, author of Hate Violence? Turn It Off! Reminds everyone that
“Violence as entertainment, or as a realistic expression of what is going on in the world, will never appeal to some people. But no one is forcing them to watch. There are dozens of other channels, hundreds of other programs. There’s also an off button.”

Goodman states that “Television is not the problem in our society. It may always be the scapegoat, but it’s nothing more than a bastard machine, not half as disturbing as the real thing”.

Goshgarian,Gary. What Matters in America.
New York: Pearson Education Inc., 2007

Goodman,Tim. "Hate violence? Turn it Off!".
Goshgarian, Gary. What Matters in America.
New York: Pearson Education Inc., 2007

Males, Mike. "Stop Blaming Kids and TV."
Goshgarian, Gary. What Matters in America.
New York: Pearson Education Inc., 2007

Gerbner, George. "Television's Global Marketing Strategy".
Goshgarian, Gary. What Matters in America.
New York: Pearson Education Inc., 2007

American Psychological Association. "Violence on Television".
Goshgarian, Gary. What Matters in America.
New York: Pearson Education Inc., 2007