Violence on television and childrenHow much time does your child spend in front of the television? What are they looking at? These are two very important questions for parents to ask themselves. For what? Studies have shown that children learn more about life from media than any other way. (Nielson Media Research, 1993) It's a sad truth. You would think that this information alone would be enough to make a parent stop, take a step back, and evaluate how their children are spending their time. This is obviously not the case, as the average American child continues to spend approximately twenty-eight hours per week in front of a television (Nielson Media Research, 1993). As long as the mothers and fathers of young Americans continue to drag their feet in identifying, assessing and taking a proactive approach to eliminating the bombardment of large amounts of violence in the 99% of American homes in which televisions reside (Nielson Media Research, 1995), our children will continue to become dumber, lazier, fatter and not to mention more violent. .Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The consumption of violence on television has been on an increasing trend since the 1950s. At that time, only 10% of households Americans owned a television and the programming included shows such as I Love Lucy, Lassie and Father Knows Best. (tqjunior.thinkquest.org/5676/history.html) By the 1960s, the number of people with televisions at home had increased to fifty million, and programming now included violent protests, presidential assassinations, and the Vietnam War . (tqjunior.thinkquest.org/5676/history.html) Here we are now forty-one years later. The number of televisions in the home has increased to 99%, in fact, more families own a television than a telephone. (Nielson Media Research, 1995) A number of studies have been conducted over the past thirty years to assess the correlation between television and violence. One was by a man named BrandonCenterwall at the University of Washington who conducted studies in the United States, Canada and South Africa linking exposure to violent television to increased physical aggression and violent criminal behavior among children. (www.benton.org/News/Extra/media061799.html) In fact, another study of demographic data from various countries showed that homicide rates doubled within 10 to 15 years after the introduction of television , even though television had been introduced at different times in each site examined. (Centerwall, BS: Television exposure as a cause of violence. In Comstock G (ed.): Public Communications Behavior. Orlando, Florida: Academic Press Inc; 1989, 2: 1-58) If televised violence can be linked to increased physical aggression more than poverty, race or parental behavior (Leonard Eron and Rowell Huesmann, www.abelard.org/tv/tv.html); and homicide rates doubled within 10 to 15 years of the introduction of television in various countries; and the number of American households owning televisions has increased by more than 80 percent over the past forty-one years, so perhaps parents should be at least somewhat concerned about how much television their child watches, without mentioning the subject. case in which they are exposed. A startling study has found that the average American child will witness more than 100,000 acts of violence, including more than 8,000 murders, on television before their 13th birthday. (Center for Media and Public Affairs,1992) Parents might wonder what programs my child might watch. Somewhat misleadingly, 46% of all television violence takes place in cartoons. (National Television Violence Study, published by Mediascope, February 1996.) While cartoons account for nearly half of all violence shown on television and these types of programs are primarily watched by children under 13, who is really at risk here? According to psychologistRowell Huesmann of the University of Michigan are our children. He and others say the most delicate and critical years of a child's development occur between ages six and eight. Right now, he says, young people are learning social behavior that will serve them throughout their lives. (www.abelgard.org/tv/tv.htm) A study conducted by Leonard Eron, a colleague of Huessmans, in 1960 and which lasted twenty-two years, validates Huessmans' ideas. Eron conducted a longitudinal study of more than 800 eight-year-old boys. By tracking their viewing habits and behaviors, Eron concluded that youth who watched the most violent programs growing up were most likely to engage in aggressive and delinquent behaviors at age 18 and serious criminals at the age of 30. www.abelard.org/tv/tv.htm) One last study should be noted in order to remove any remaining doubts in the minds of parents or critics who still believe that television is harmless. The CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey is a school-based survey designed to produce a nationally representative sample of risk behaviors among students in grades 9-12. Between July 1, 1994 and June 30, 1998, a survey was conducted to identify violence among young people in schools. Their findings resulted in 173 separate incidents; the majority of which were homicides involving the use of firearms. (www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/schoolvi.htm) All of the evidence cited is absolutely damning. It's fair to say that not all of the 173 violent incidents reported by the CDC were directly linked to a particular television show that caused the perpetrator to commit an act of violence against a classmate. However, if we want to, something must be done to limit the flow of violence into our homes. In 1989, an engineering student at Simon Fraser University spent fourteen days locked in his room watching movies. After that, he massacred fourteen students on campus. Obviously there was more to this than a guy watching a few movies then going on a killing spree. Nonetheless, this prompted another engineering student named Tim Collins to invent what is known as the V-chip or violence vessel. (tqjunior.thinkquest.org/5676/collings.html) The purpose of the V-chip is to block television shows with inappropriate content or violence. The V chip reads the rating code, created by a committee of parents, television stations, television producers, cable operators and public interest groups, given for television shows, at except news, sports and premium cable channels, interprets and compares them to the values ​​predefined by parents. Then, it sends a signal to your TV instructing it to block shows whose rating exceeds the preset values ​​given by parents. If children attempt to break or disconnect the device, the TV screen will display the word TAMPER. (tqjunior.thinkquest.org/5676/vchip.html) On February 8, 1996, President Clinton and Vice President Gore signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, also known.