Children and television violence |
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abstract | ||
research sources | ||
1 Gerbner | ||
2 Huesmann | ||
3 Williams | ||
4 Eron and Huesmann | ||
5 Medved | ||
child education - review results of recent studies | ||
is government aware of the data? | ||
understanding statistics | ||
what can you do about it? | ||
other resources | ||
advice to readers of this document
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abstractViolence on television affects children negatively, according to psychological research. The three major effects of seeing violence on television are:
Imitation is a high human element, especially among the young. Just one publicised school shooting, in my view, leads to imitation. FACT: The average American child will have watched 100,000 acts of televised violence, including 8000 depictions of murder, by the time he or she finishes sixth grade (approximately 13 years old). We live in an era where both parents are often working and children have more unsupervised time. It is essential that you make time for children and regularly inform yourself of their day to day experiences, including while they are at school if they attend school. If you think wall to wall violence on TV has no effect, why would you imagine that one-minute adverts in the breaks do have an effect? |
2 research sources1 GerbnerStudies by George Gerbner, at the University of Pennsylvania, have shown that children's television shows contain about 20 violent acts each hour. They also showed that children who watch a lot of television are more likely to think that the world is a mean and dangerous place. Children often behave differently after they've been watching violent programmes on television. In one study done at Pennsylvania State University, about 100 pre-school children were observed both before and after watching television. Some watched cartoons that had many aggressive and violent acts; others watched shows that didn't have any kind of violence. The researchers noticed real differences between the children who watched the violent shows and those who watched non-violent ones. Children who watched the violent shows were more likely to strike out at playmates, argue, disobey authority and were less willing to wait for things than those children who watched non-violent programmes. 2 HuesmannFor most of television's early years, it was difficult to find role models that would inspire young girls in the viewing audience. In the mid-1970s, a new genre of programmes such as Charlie's Angels, Wonder Woman, The Bionic Woman entered the scene. Now, there were females on television who were in control, aggressive and were not dependent upon males for their success. Conventional wisdom might suggest this phenomenon would have a positive impact on younger female viewers. Huesmann's research states that young girls who often watched shows featuring aggressive heroines in the 1970s, have grown up to be more aggressive adults involved in more confrontations, shoving matches, choking and knife fights than women who had watched few or none of these shows. One example cited by Huesmann is that 59 percent of those who watched an above-average amount of violence on television as children, were involved in more than the average number of such aggressive incidents later in life. Huesmann says that ages six to eight are very delicate and critical years in the development of children. Youngsters are learning social behaviour that will last them throughout their life. |
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Some of the most compelling studies have investigated children's behaviour in areas before and after the introduction of television. In the early seventies, Tannis Macbeth Williams and other researchers from the University of British Columbia compared the levels of aggression in first and second graders from two Canadian towns, one with access to TV and one, due to a mountain range, with no TV access. When the mountain town finally received television, the hitting, biting, and shoving levels of the children increased by 160 percent. |
4 Eron and HuesmannUniversity of Michigan psychologists Leonard Eron and Rowell Huesmann have followed the viewing habits of a group of children for decades. They found that watching violence on television is the single factor most closely associated with aggressive behaviour-more than poverty, race, or parental behaviour. In 1960, Eron embarked on a landmark longitudinal study of over 800 eight-year-olds. He found that children who watched many hours of violent television tended to be more aggressive in the playground and the classroom. Eron and Huesmann checked back with these students 11 and 22 years later. They found that the aggressive eight-year-olds grew up to become even more aggressive 19- and 30-year-olds, with greater troubles-including domestic violence and more traffic tickets-than their less aggressive counterparts who did not watch as much television. And the researchers found that even if a child is not aggressive at the age of eight, but watches substantial amounts of violent programming, he will be more aggressive at 19 than his peers who didn't watch violent TV. 5 MedvedMichael Medved is a news host on US television who campaigns on the issue of screen violence. He has written a very cogent and useful article printed in the otherwise uninspiring book,
Medved attacks the standard lies of the entertainment industry: 1) There is no proof! 2) Millions watch violent TV without becoming criminals. 3) Media reflects reality. 4) We give the public what they want. 5) If you dont like it, you can turn it off. |
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child education - review results of recent studiesSeveral recent [2005] studies show that the quality of the content that children watch on television matches closely with their later level of academic success. Watching less TV increases a child’s likelihood of successfully finishing university, although watching higher quality programmes with educational content can help children achieve academically. Between the ages of five and eleven the less television watched, the greater the probability of success at school and beyond. This finding is amplified for the middle, ‘average’ range of intelligence. Having a television in the bedroom is also likely to contribute to lower grades or even failure. |
understanding statisticsI have added the following in order to clarify meaning in response to a reader who asked about the following:
People in these types of situations often make up reasons after the event as to why they did these things (excuses?). Determining whether a particular set of behaviours by a particular person was caused, or influenced, by watching violence on the television or in cinemas is impossible, but statistically the link can be shown to be true. As with smoking, it can be shown statistically that there is a direct link between smoking and many diseases, but it is impossible to prove with an individual case. It is common for purveyors of cigarettes and media violence to use public misunderstanding of statistical investigations to claim that “there is no proof” that their product caused damage. Many scientists are also not very good at statistical reasoning and tend to confuse individual outcomes with statistical patterns. Statistics is a complex and sophisticated study. If you wish to go further, you may like to read an analysis of similar difficulties where statistics is applied to an even more complex problem at Intelligence: misuse and abuse of statistics. Memory can also often be unreliable when recalling events and the reasons for those events. People often make up stories after the event that fit with their desired impression of that event. If you wish to follow up on this area of psychology a bit further, look at Repressed memory. |
other resourcesreview articleThe following is a useful review article on related issues. It is available at: http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/text/pblct/fv/fv04/toce_e.shtml The approximate length of the article is 13,000 words. For comparison, that is 7 times the length of this document. The Impact of Experiencing and Witnessing Family Violence during Childhood:
By Christine Alksnis and Jo-Anne Taylor
more related informationFurther subsidary information and links are available at prevention of violence. |
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