Television and Violence
"The new pornography depicts ... people staving teeth in, ripping guts open, blowing brains out, and getting even with al those bastards..."(Wolfe, 655). Just as Wolfe describes in his essay "Pornoviolence," violence has become a staple in movies, TV series', and the media. These grotesque images have become so common that for some young children the barrier between reality and fantasy has become blurred. Children see their favorite actors killing and maiming in high definition video for some cause or another on an almost daily basis. How can children, whose understanding of the world is still developing, not be affected by these often overdone portrayals of violence? The truth is that no matter how much we would like to think they are not, children's minds are being shaped by what they see on television and in movies. Children's lives revolve around television more and more these days. Accordin
Before leaving elementary school a child will have witnessed 8,000 murders and 100,000 violent acts ("By the Numbers"). The child constantly sees character's die, and soon the child becomes so used to these scenes that the thought of committing an act of aggression or violence looses its power as being considered "bad" ("Children"). However, many psychologists agree that at a young age children use these animated characters as role models, and because these role models are depicted doing violent acts in an often-humorous way, the child will associate the actions seen on television as being humorous. Because the adolescent mind grows and changes the most in this period, a child's grasp on reality is not firm, which causes a child's perceptions to rule its judgment ("Stages). Many people disregard animated violence because it is deemed as fantasy violence, and because it is depicted in a way that is unrealistic the child will deem it as fantasy. " Children, especially younger children, look up to and imitate people around them, and that includes characters from television or movies. And as the amount of hours that children spend glued to the television increases, so does the amount of violence being fed to them. g to a recent study done by Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, by the time a child is 18, s/he will have watched 15,000 hours of television while only attending school for a total of 11,000 hours. This aggression is due to a desensitizing of pain and violence. Psychologists believe that children's perception of reality can be affected in three major ways by excessive violence: they may become desensitized to the world around them, they may fear the world around them because of a belief that violence exists in the real world as it does on television, and children are more likely to act aggressively towards others ("Children"). Not only are children being accosted by violence during prime time viewing; they are being bombarded with a lesser form of violence from cartoons. This increase in already violent shows can serve only to further desensitize children to unspeakable acts. Cartoon's make up a large portion of a child's viewing time, and most if not all depict some form of violence or aggression. A study done in 1998 by the independent company Mediascope, hired by the National Cable Television Association found that violence in prime-time television had made a 14% jump in television violence than in the previous season ("Television Violence").
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Acceptance Essays
