Television Violence and Children

Television and other media have always been blamed about showcasing violence to a large extent. Many television shows are infamous for their violent content. Television violence is all about murders, bloodshed, explosions, disaster and deaths. TV shows often demonstrate hitting, stabbing, screaming, thus expressing negativity. This destruction shown on television lays a deep impact on its viewers, especially children. Television violence and children are closely related entities as children form a large portion of television audience.

It is a point of debate whether television reflects society or behavior of society reflects what is shown on television. But at some point it becomes a vicious circle. People follow what they see on TV and television shows revolve around what is prevalent is society. Television is bound to have a deep impact on the viewers, especially children. Children tend to blindly follow whatever they see. Television violence influences children to a great extent because they relate to characters on television.

Television violence affects children of different ages in different ways. The effect depends on their levels of understanding, their ways of processing information and their own experiences.

Television Violence and Children

• Infants perceive television shows as being displays of light and sound. They often miss the program content. They can make meaning only out of characters and faces familiar to them. It is said that if behavior on television is presented to them in simpler ways, they are likely to imitate it.
• When children reach an age of two and half years, they begin to pay more attention to what is shown on TV and tend to imitate it. At that age children prefer to watch fast moving characters and are likely to get exposed to television violence. During the pre-school age, children begin to derive meaning from what they see on television. Intense scenes and sounds attract them. Cartoon violence draws in the children of that age. It is seen that pre-schoolers behave aggressively after watching action and violence on TV.
• During their initial years of schooling, children begin to understand the television scenes. They are able to follow the actions of characters and the consequences of the characters’ actions. But they tend to think less on what they see, which results in their reactions of a superficial nature. If children identify with a villain, they may start enacting his behavior. They think of emulating that violent hero. There is also a likelihood of them becoming tolerant to the real world violence. Studies say that watching horror movies can be an attempt by children to get over their own phobias.
• When adolescent, the children start watching television independently. At that age, they can reason everything they see but they do not exert mentally in watching TV. Some adolescents continue to relate to violent heroes and believe in the reality of television. If they are exposed to suicides and crime they may try to imitate those kinds of behaviors.

Children’s minds are not mature enough to understand the context of the violence they watch on television. Take an example of a psychic villain or a murderer who constantly bears a feeling of guilt about his acts. In the first scenario, a child misses to perceive the psychological disorder that has made a villain. In the second case, a child fails to understand the emptiness in the life of a murderer. Thus they are unable to comprehend the causes and effects of evil behavior. They miss out on the intricacies of the scenes on television. They wrongly interpret the wrongdoer and tread the wrong way.

Primarily, children become insensitive to the pain of others. They may become numb on watching something terrifically violent. Secondly, children feel that the people in their surroundings are all of a violent nature. They think the world around them is similar to what is portrayed on TV. Due to this, they fear people. They speculate something ill happening to them. They feel the possibility of the happening of frightening incidents in their lives. Thirdly, they tend to harm others. They become over-aggressive and rebellious. They disobey rules. They become impatient and refuse to wait for things, they leave work unfinished thus do not perform well in school. Television violence can impact children in two distinct ways. Either they develop immunity towards cruelty or an extreme fear of living is a dangerous society grips them.

Television shows portraying the ‘positive’ are history. Scenes of TV stories are no more depictions of only the good. Today’s wrestling shows, violent movies and intense emotions expressed on TV, are bound to leave behind a long lasting impact on television viewers. Children have to face the after effects of television violence. Today’s children are the future of our society and it’s important that they stay away from violence. Violence might make the children timid and pessimistic. It may instill evil feelings in their minds. Television violence creates a wrong picture of society in the minds of the little ones. They take to suicidal attempts or may even take to murders. Youth takes to committing crime leading to youth violence. These harmful effects need to be curbed.

Parents have an important role to play in preventing their kids from watching the violence that is showcased on television. Kids should be encouraged to watch children’s programs. Parent must use their discretionary powers to decide which programs their children should watch and which ones they should not. Early exposure to violence on TV leads to abnormalities in children’s behavior. Parents are advised to pay attention to the programs their kids watch and restrict the time for which their kids can continue watching TV. They are advised to contact other parents and collectively implement rules of television watching. Parents need to reject violence in front of their children. They should explain their kids the reality behind the scenes. It’s necessary to call the ‘wrong’ as wrong when television violence is perpetually projecting the ‘wrong’ as ‘right’.