Television And Violence

For decades, scientists have studied the effects of TV but mainly focusing on watching if violence on TV connects with real life violence. In the present, much of today's TV programming is violent. Viewing of TV violence by children causes aggressiveness. In fact, a single TV program being watched may increase aggressiveness. There are three major effects on children seeing violence on TV which are:

-They may become less sensitive to pain or suffering of others.

-They may be more fearful of the world around them.

-They may be more likely to behave in aggressive ways.

An interesting fact is that the average American child will have watched over 100,000 acts of violence on TV by the time he/she is 13 years old. Parents are often working and children have a lot of unsupervised time. Researchers have found that children's TV shows have approximately 20 violent acts per hour. They found many differences between children who watch violent shows and children who watch non-violent shows. The children who watch violent shows argue or disobey and are considered less willing to wait for things than the ones who watch the non-violent shows.

Researchers have looked at the children's behaviors in areas before and after the introduction of TV. In the 1970s, they compared aggression levels in first and second graders, one with access to TV and one with no TV access because of a mountain range. When the mountain town received TV, the viewing increased by approximately 160%.