"I’m Leonardo!"

"No way! I’m Leonardo!"

"You’re always Leonardo, it’s not fair. I’ll go tell mom!"

Seven year old Jake and five year old Pete loved the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and never missed an episode on the television.

"If you tell mom I’ll hit you," said Jake as he lifted his wooden sword above his head, ready to take a swing at his younger brother Pete, but not knowing that their mother was nearby.

"Jake, you give me that sword right now! Never do that to your younger brother again, you hear me?"

As their mother took the sword from Jake and left the room, Pete sat on his bed making faces and sticking his tongue out at his older brother.

"Ha, Ha, Ha!" Pete couldn’t stop laughing.

"Shut up Pete. It’s all your fault!"

"You got your sword taken away and now you can’t be Leonardo cause you don’t have a sword!"

"Oh yah! Give me your sword," said Jake as he eyed the sword in Pete’s hand

"No!"

"You better!"

"It’s mine!"

"Not any more Petey!"

As Jake rushed towards Pete, Pete stood up and took a swing. Whack! The swing landed across the face of Jake. Jake lay on the ground not moving, with blood pouring from his nose.

This is a type of behavior you might see in a lot of children now days. They watch their favorite television shows so much, become immune to the violence in the show, and think that it is all right to be violent because they are taking the roll of one of the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."

"Television is becoming less and less an escape route into fantasy, it’s becoming reality" (Palmer). This is a very true and powerful quote given by a researcher, who is stating that the things seen on television in the earlier days were known to be fiction, but today kids are bringing the fiction from the television shows into our real lives. Horrible murders, even by kids as young as age twelve, and kids carrying weapons wherever they go for what they say is "protection" are both facts that Palmers’ statement is true. The television may not be the soul cause of the terrible crimes, but there is proof that these unimaginable crimes, to people fifty years ago, are caused by violence seen on the television.

In our world today, television is a part of almost everyone’s life. Researchers state that on the average, children in America today spend at least three to four hours watching television a day. That means that on the weekly average, a child could spend up to twenty-eight hours on the television. Therefore, the television shows children watch, definitely have major contributions in developing values and shaping their behavior. Because of the many violent shows that are on the television today, it isn’t really a good thing that children are being taught by the television. Even though there are many good programs on the television, there is a majority of shows children love, that show them that "violence" is the way to go.

The main problems that people have found through hundreds of studies came to these four conclusions:

Children:

• Become "immune" to the horror of violence;
• Gradually accept violence as a way to solve problems;
• Imitate the violence they observe on television;
• Identify with certain characters, victims and/or victimizers (Int2, 1);

A researcher stated, "Extensive viewing of television violence by children causes greater aggressiveness. Sometimes, watching a single violent program can increase aggressiveness. Children who view shows in which violence is very realistic, frequently repeated or unpunished, are more likely to imitate what they see. The impact of TV violence may be immediately evident in the child’s behavior or may surface years later, and young people can even be affected when the family atmosphere shows no tendency toward violence" (Int2, 1).

"Aggressive behavior" is considered the primary result of children who watch violence on the television. "Aggressive behavior" may be influenced by many other things, but the television has been proven, through many studies, to influence this behavior.

If you were to ask some children what their favorite television shows are, a majority of the children will respond with a show that contains a lot of violence. Examples include "The Mighty Morphine Power Rangers" and "The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." These two shows seem to act as role models for many children. When you see these kids playing "make believe" or "acting out" one of their characters, they gain a behavior aggressive enough to make their role model look and act the best. Even though they may be "just pretending," this kind of acting still brings out aggressive behavior that is a result of the show that they are watching on the television.

In 1963, one of the first experiments was done by a man named Albert Bandura. This experiment was set up to demonstrate how easily viewing aggression can influence a child. Bandura and his researchers used preschoolers and put them into four groups. In the first group he had a Bobo doll, which is a toy clown. Using a live model, he verbally and physically abused the doll. In the second group, he used a film to also verbally and physically abuse the doll. In the third group he used a lady to also abuse the doll. And in the fourth group, he did nothing.

Then all of the children were put in a playroom with Bobo dolls to be observed. Out of the four groups, only the three that witnessed the aggressive acts towards the doll became violent towards Bobo; some even imitated what they saw while the doll was being abused. The fourth group didn’t exemplify any aggressive behavior towards the doll. This is just one of many studies showing how observing violence, children will be more likely to imitate the aggressive acts that they have observed (Int1, 3&4).

"The Social Learning" theory was developed by Bandura. This is the main argument that violence on television leads to aggression in children. Children copy scenes from the television and believe that it is all right to do. Bandura also said that not every child that watches a violent show will act it out and become more violent, but the likeliness of them doing so is much greater.

In 1974, another study was done by Drabman and Thomas. This study was made to demonstrate how children become desensitized to violence. In this study, Forty-four boys and girls, in the fourth grade, were divided into two groups. One group saw a very violent western movie and the other group didn’t see a movie. Then the kids were asked to "baby-sit" two children. When the two children started to argue and fight, the researchers noticed that the kids who watched the western movie waited a longer time to get the kids to stop than did the kids who didn’t see a movie. This experiment showed that the children that watched the movie, were more desensitized than the children that didn’t see the movie (Int1, 4).

Another study was done by a man named William Belson. He wanted to see the long-range effects of violence on the television, so he observed many teenage boys. He controlled one hundred of the boys and made them watch more than the average amount of violence on the television. In the long run of this study, the kids that watched more than the average amount of television committed crimes, such as rape and assault, "at a rate 49% higher than teenage boys who had watched below average quantities of television violence" (Int1, 4).

The funny thing about this test was that the study was funded by CBS, which is one of the stations that is responsible for showing violence on the television. ABC also did a study in which they found that the crimes committed by juveniles were "re-enactment’s" of the crimes that were shown on the television. This research was done by Heller and Polsky. The results of these studies were not given to the public for many years.

These studies proved three of the major questions surrounding violence seen on the television: Aggressive behavior is a result, kids are definitely becoming immune or desensitized, and bad long-term effects are proved to be a result of seeing violent acts. People may say that other factors may have contributed in the kids lives to make them act poorly, and that is true, but researchers have proved that seeing the acts of violence caused them to act violently.

There are many stories of people re-enacting crimes that they have seen on their television. One story included a five-year-old boy that set his house on fire, killing his two-year-old sister. His mother had stated that he was addicted to the MTV cartoon "Beavis and Butthead." Afterwards they found out he had set his couch on fire after watching the two dumb cartoon characters set their couch on fire.

In another story, a teenage boy was killed by a car when he was imitating a scene from the movie, "The Program." In the movie, a guy was to lie down along the center divider of a busy road between lanes of cars in order to prove his courage.

A thirteen-year-old boy and his friend were acting out the Russian Roulette scene from the show "The Deer Hunter." The boy died instantly after shooting himself in the head.

A very weird story happened with an eleven-year-old girl in Illinois. When there was a big thunderstorm, her grandma made her turn the television set off. Because of this deprivation the girl went mad. She slapped her grandma, stabbed her ten-year-old brother with a pair of scissors, and attacked her mother with a butcher knife. TV deprivation usually will not effect children this way, but if they see too much television violence, they might just lose their mind.

In May of 1996, a study by the National Cable Television Association took place. They studied several items in violent shows and presented that:

1. The context in which most violence is presented on television poses risks for viewers.
2. Perpetrators go unpunished in 73% of all violent scenes;
3. The negative consequences of violence are often not portrayed in violent programming;
4. 25% of violent interactions on TV involve the use of a handgun;
5. Only 4% of violent programs emphasize an anti-violence theme (Int6, 1);

Kids grow up seeing the shows, but not the consequences that result from the violence. They think that, "I can get away with it," or, "If he did it than I can do it." Even though the probability of the kids getting away with major crimes is a lot less than on a show, some kids really think that they will not be punished. Our society needs to let the kids know that there is a consequence for every poor decision, and that they will not get away with major crimes.

Television stations seem to be noticing that there are effects of television violence because in October, 1996, there were significant declines of violence on the television. Of the 114 television series examined, only five of them used violence a lot. That statistic is down four from 1995.

The TV series that concerned the Researchers were, 1) Walker, Texas Ranger, 2) Nash Bridges, 3) New York Undercover, 4) Space: Above and Beyond, and 5) Kindred.

The children’s TV shows were down to four (seven last year). They are, 1) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 2) Power Rangers, 3) Masked rider, 4) X-Men.

These studies were taken by UCLA Television Violence Monitoring Project, and is funded by ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox (Int3, 1).

One of the biggest sources of TV violence can surprisingly be found on the nightly news. When you flip on your TV set to watch the news, do you ever think of the photos and stories that they are going to show you? When they do tell you about someone being murdered, you hardly give thought to it. This is because most of us are so immune to seeing and hearing about violence that it usually doesn’t even phase us.

A major reason that it will make it impossible to get rid of violence on the TV, is that it is so accepted. Also, people are so used to it that it doesn’t even dawn on them that it is hurting themselves or their children. The violent shows are also the most entertaining to watch on the television. Why do you think that there is so much violence in the United States? Because it is accepted and not even noticed by a lot of the public until it happens to them.

In the past few years, TV violence has been a major part of legislation in the United States. The "Television Violence Report Card Act of 1993" was a big step. Congress made a bill which was titled, "To require the Federal Communications Commission to evaluate and publicly report on the violence contained in television programs, and for other purposes" (Int4, 1).

This bill mainly required that ratings be put on all television shows in order to show the amount of violence in the programs. Ratings are based on an age-based system. The ratings for shows are based on sex, violence, language, and dialogue. They are: TV-Y, TV-Y7, TV-G, TV-PG, TV-14, and TV-MA.

The Bill also requires the Federal Communications Commission to meet four times a year, for a week at a time, to evaluate how the program is working. This is a major step for the U.S. to control the amount of violence, and make parents aware of the violence in our daily television shows.

The V-chip was another step to keep our children from viewing too much violence on television. The V-chip was invented by the Parental Guide Company, and is made to fit inside the television set. The parents are then suppose to screen out the unwanted stations and shows that their children watch. The inventors have also made a chip that will only edit the questionable scene(s) on the television show.

David Abboud, Vice President of the Parental Guide Company, stated, "With so many cable stations available and the increasing amount of objectionable material on television, parents need all the help they can get" (Int5, 1).

The nation has made a very big step in controlling the amount of violence on the television, but David Abboud made a very important statement by putting the word "parents" in his quote. The way to keep the violence out of the household begins with the parents. You need to step it up and not let your children watch the violent shows that are shown every day on television. Some ways to control the amount of violence your children are viewing are:

1. Pay close attention to the programs your children are watching; don’t let them watch anything questionable.
2. If you have time, watch television with your children; you need to spend time with them in order to teach them values.
3. Set limits on the amount of time your children spend on the television; only one to two hours a day at the most.
4. Don’t let your children just flip on the television to "see what’s on"; make sure that they know what they want to watch, if they don’t, help them find something worthwhile.
5. No violent shows; have them, or yourself, change the channel or turn off the TV set when something offensive comes on.
6. Disapprove of the violent episodes; let them know that you do not approve of them.
7. Know the rating system; only let your children watch the shows that go along with their age.
8. Look into purchasing the V-chip; this is the easiest way to control what your child can watch when you are not at home.

These are just some of the things that you must do to control your children from watching too much violence on the television. You should also influence your children to participate in better activities such as sports, reading books, and even hanging out with friends. Even though the TV is a good source of education you, as parents, need to control what is being watched throughout the entire household.

Teaching kids that violence isn’t good and can affect almost anyone begins with-in the family. There is a lot of violence lately in the United States, and lately, it is seen at such a young age with children. Somewhere along the way they learn their values and behavior. The media is a main part of contributing to the causes of violence, and even though it isn’t totally their fault, they have to take some of the blame when a kid announces that, "I did it because Beavis and Butthead did it."

So who’s fault is it? Starting with the government and moving down through the media executives, the blame is put on us, the public viewers. NBC chairman Grant Tinker stated, "The audience gets what it wants and, therefore, what it deserves" (Int7, 1). So it is up to us to control the amount of violence that is shown on the television. As parents, you definitely want your children to be a good, non-violent, kids. Violence on the television has been proven to cause violence in children, so it is up to us to keep them from watching it.

Palmer, Edward L., Children in the Cradle of Television

Lexington, Massachusetts, 1987

Int1: "Does Violence on Television Cause Aggressive Behavior?" 1998

On-line. Internet. Available: http://www.gettysburg.edu/~s410392/tv.html

Int2: "Children & TV Violence" 1992

On-line. Internet. Available: http://www.psych.med.umich.edu/web/aacap/factsFam/violence.htm

Int3: "New study shows drop in television violence" 1996

On-line. Internet. Available: http://www.screen.com/mnet/eng/NEWS/NEWS/ucla2.htm

Int4: "Television Violence Report Card Act of 1993 (Introduced in the House)" 1993

On-line. Internet. Available: http://www.duke.edu/~cars/cill2.html

Int5: "TV Violence chip makes its debut!" 1998

On-line. Internet. Available: http://www.pathfinder.com/money/latest/press/PW/1998Mar13/273.html

Int6: "TV Violence Study Confirms Fears" 1996

On-line. Internet. Available: http://www.dove.org/dove/columns/1996/column9605.htm

Int7: Magee, Mary "On Television: The Violence Factor" 1984

On-line. Internet. Available: http://www.newsreel.org/films/violence.htm

1. The specific purpose of my paper was to make people aware of the causes of television violence and that there are solutions to help control it.
2. My main audience is Parents. It would help all of society also.
3. I put important and surprising facts and studies to prove that violence on the television has bad results. I let the reader know that it was up to them to help control the problem.
4. A.) Parents aren’t always around to keep their kids from watching bad shows; V-Chip.

B.) So many people are already into violent shows; I showed the results, so just stop watching them.

C.) Long-term effects. Not aware of effects until later; Kids showed aggression right after viewing violence.

5. I used concrete details, some action verbs, some sentence variety, and a lot of insight.
6. All of my paper was based on research.
7. A good one! Yes!
8. Yes. _______________________________
9. Yes. _______________________________

Gunter, Barrie & McAleen, Jill L., Children and Television,

New York, New York, 1990

Just gave me more insight on how television effects children.

Levine, Madeline, Ph.D., Viewing Violence,

New York, New York, 1996

Gave more ideas on how viewing violence effects people.

"Potential Warning Signs for Violence in Children." 1998

Online. Internet. Available: http://helping.apa.org/warning.html

Ways to see if your child is seeing too much violence on the television.

"Report: TV ratings may lure youngsters to racy shows." 1997

Online. Internet. Available: http://cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/9703/26/tv.violence/

When a child sees a bad rating, he will want to watch the show. More statistics on the amount of violence shown on the television.

"Reason Online: Does TV violence cause real-world mayhem?" 1994

Online. Internet. Available: http://www.reasonmag.com/9605/Dept.Trd.NICKtvvio.html

More facts on how violence on the television effects the amount of violence in the world.

Beckman, Jeanne, Ph.D., "Television Violence: What the Research Says about its Effect on Young Children." 1996

Online. Internet. Available: http://ericps.ed.uiuc.edu/npin/respar/texts/media/tvviod96.html

Children’s television programs actually contain five times more violence than the average prime time hour of TV.

"Television Violence." 1998

Online. Internet. Available: http://www.indep.k12.mo.us/THS/student/mbaldwin/research.html

More studies on the effects of violence on young people.