Violence on Television
THE EFFECTS OF TV AND TV VIOLENCE ON AN INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY The average American child watches 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violencebefore finishing elementary school. That is not surprising considering the average childis watching 27 hours of television each week, and in the inner-city children watch up toeleven hours per day. Twenty-five percent of prime time shows in the fall of 1992contained highly violent material, and the US homicide rate is rising fast- six times fasterthan the population(CQ Researcher, 167). "There has never been a situation like this,"says George Gerbner. A Times Mirror poll held in March of 1992 showed 72% ofAmericans think there is definitely excessive violence on TV and a 1990 Gallop pollfound 63% agree television programs that depict crime and violence actually encourageit(CQ Researcher,167-8). Television also causes the viewer to be in a "hypnotic" state sothey don't respond to anything happening around them. TV blurs an individual'sperception of reality and TV violence affects society and induces violence and crimes. Television creates a blur of reality. "Television is greatly criticized for failing toprovide a complete, unbiased picture of reality" (Encarta) While one
"Between 1950 and 1975, TV household use increased from fourhours, twenty-five minutes per day to six hours and eight minutes per day" (Winn, 69). This is because television placesimages into our brains (Mander, 216). While a person is watching the TV screen, their eyes stop seeking outinformation. "Television is a lot like hypnosis;you create a new focus, stop outside focuses, cut down all diversions, stay quiet and stilland eventually the viewer will be in a hypnotic state" (Mander, 195). Some crimeschildren have committed: " Ten and twelve year old muggers preying on the elderly,casually torturing and murdering their helpless victims, youths assailing a bicyclist in apark and beating him to death with a chain before escaping with his bike, kids breakinginto an apartment and stomping an elderly man or drowning a woman in her bathtub"(Winn, 73). TV violence also affects the sensitivity towards violence in children. After watching televisionnonstop for long hours, a person ceases to respond to anything. People also believe television is real. It literally stops the critical mind (Mander, 197). The problem is that children don't learn how to commit violence from watchingviolence on TV, (but perhaps sometimes they do) but the TV teaches them to deal withreal people if they were on a television screen" (Winn, 73, 74). In 1975, the National PTA demanded that networks andlocal TV stations reduce the amount of violence in shows and commercials (CQResearcher, 175). "The image held in our mind produces physiological as well aspsychological reactions. It hasphysical character" (Mander, 222). More than 3,000 studies in the past 40 years have been done to prove the linkbetween violence in TV and real violence.
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