Media Mid-Term Rough Draft

Unbelievable Stories about Apathy and Altruism, the third chapter of the book Superfreakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, explains the raise in the crime after the post-war baby boom in the United States. They claimed that children who grew up watching a lot of television had a high risk of engaging in crime when they became adults.


I investigated this claim and I have to strongly agree. I intend to express in my essay that excessive television viewing, whether it is programming that is evidently violent or insinuating violence, can inspire violence and aggression in children as they grow into adulthood. After reading the statistics of the situation they brought me to this claim effortlessly.


The main statistics:
- by the time children are 18 they have seen an estimation of 200,000 to 300,000 acts of violence on television and witness 8,000 murders to 16,000 murders.
- they get confused by the messages they receive about violence from their parents with the messages they receive from television
- it is recommended that children under the age of two not watch any television at all since those are the most crucial years of development in a child's life
- children older than two should not watch more than 1-2 hours of edifying television
- children who watch 4 or more hours of television are more likely to exhibit aggressive behavior and perform violent acts as well as be afraid of the world around them
- children from the of ages 2-5 spend 32 hours a week in front of a TV; watching television, DVDs, DVR and videos, and using a game console.
- Kids from the ages of 6-11 spend about 28 hours a week in front of the TV
- The majority of children’s television viewing is live TV.
- 68% of 8- to 18-year-olds have a TV in their bedroom; 54% have a DVD/VCR player, 37% have cable/satellite TV, and 20% have premium channels.
- In 63% of households, the TV is "usually" on during meals.
- In 53% of households of 7th- to 12th-graders, there are no rules about TV watching
- In 51% of households, the TV is on "most" of the time
- Kids with a TV in their bedroom spend an average of almost 1.5 hours more per day watching TV than kids without a TV in the bedroom.
- Many parents encourage their toddlers to watch television.
L. Gavin, MD, Mary How TV Affects Your Child. http://kidshealth.org/parent/positive/family/tv_affects_child.html#
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Boyse, R.N., Kyla. “Television and Children“ Reviewed by faculty and staff at the University of Michigan. http://www.med.umich.edu/yourchild/topics/tv.htm












"Doesn't the extraordinary amount of violence on TV have an adverse impact on society? Oh, I know intellectuals like to disagree with that point. For instance, Dick Cavett mocked the TV-violence debate by quipping, "There's so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?" His remark makes a nice sound bite, but shows little understanding of sociology. We are socialized. We are taught how to think and feel by society, which consists of our parents, peers, schools, churches, role models, and, yes, TV. Of course it has an impact. To deny that is to say advertisers spend billions of dollars on TV ads that don't work. That's silly. TV ads influence us, and so does everything else that appears on TV.

TV creates great harm not only by its influence, but also by what it prevents. Marie Winn makes this point clear in her book "The Plug-In Drug." She writes, "The primary danger of the television screen lies not so much in the behavior it produces - although there is danger there - as in the behavior it prevents: the talks, the games, the family festivities and arguments..." The three hours a day that the average person spends watching TV could be used in countless ways to grow. Want to master the art of digital imaging, write poetry, learn how to play a keyboard, study a foreign language, learn how to dance, or just get out and meet some interesting people? All that and more is possible simply by turning off the TV and using that time more wisely. There's much talk about life extension. People want to live longer. A 20-year-old man who watches TV three hours a day until the age of 70, could have extended his life six and a quarter years merely by turning off the TV. Shutting it off not only gets you to live longer, but to live BETTER."
Gallozzi, Chuck from the article "TV Watching - Pros and Cons: Its Influence, Power and Effects” http://www.myfavoriteezines.com/articles/TV-watching-pros-cons.html


The movie The Cable Guy is a similar example of the effects of television and children with an allusion to them being violent and aggressive.


In the movie, Jim Carey’s cable technician character had grown up since early childhood watching television, bonding with television shows; television characters in his mind, believing all that he saw on television to be completely real to him. His mother, the person that physically raised him, was a scare presence in his life. She allowed television to raise her son’s mind. As he grew to an adult he was deluded about life and didn’t grow up with some of the understanding and values the average person learned through family, peer and world interaction.


As an adult he went out into the world as a cable technician with these delusions. In an effort to
befriend one of his customers he ended up terrorizing the man, his customer. They had become friends; although reluctantly for the customer. Jim Carey’s character’s social skills were fostered through his experiences with television; specifically television shows. In the end his attempt at friendship failed and he tried to rectify it with violence fueled by human emotion, which assuredly enough was cultivated through television.


If his mother had raised him having a much more active role in his life, than letting television educate him primarily his displacement in society would have been more avoidable. He would have reduced his likelihood to turn to violence to rectify his situation and initially could have had the social graces and skills to make social connections.




The below excerpt explains a lot of how children receive television and how it affects their minds.


"Children of different ages watch and understand television in different ways, depending on the length of their attention spans, the ways in which they process information, the amount of mental effort they invest, and their own life experiences. These variables must all be examined to gain an understanding of how television violence affects them.

Infants (children up to 18 months old) can pay attention to an operating television set for short periods of time, but the attention demands a great effort and infants are usually more interested in their own activities. Even when they do pay attention to the television, infants likely miss most of what adults consider to be program content. They experience it primarily as fragmented displays of light and sound, which they are only intermittently able to group into meaningful combinations such as recognizable human or animal characters.

No research has focused specifically on how violent content affects infants, but there is some evidence that infants can imitate behaviour from television when that behaviour is presented in a simple, uncluttered and instructional manner.

Children do not become full-fledged "viewers" until around the age of two-and-a-half. As toddlers, they begin to pay more attention to the television set when it is on, and they develop a limited ability to extract meaning from television content. They are likely to imitate what they see and hear on television.

The viewing patterns children establish as toddlers will influence their viewing habits throughout their lives. Since toddlers have a strong preference for cartoons and other programs that have characters who move fast, there is considerable likelihood that they will be exposed to large amounts of violence.

At the preschool age (three to five years old), children begin watching television with an "exploration" approach. They actively search for meaning in the content, but are still especially attracted to vivid production features, such as rapid character movement, rapid changes of scene, and intense or unexpected sights and sounds.

Because television violence is accompanied by vivid production features, preschoolers are predisposed to seek out and pay attention to violence—particularly cartoon violence. It is not the violence itself that makes the cartoons attractive to preschoolers, but the accompanying vivid production features. With this preference for cartoons, preschoolers are being exposed to a large number of violent acts in their viewing day. Moreover, they are unlikely to be able to put the violence in context, since they are likely to miss any subtlety conveyed mitigating information concerning motivation and consequences. Preschoolers behave more aggressively than usual in their play after watching any high-action exciting television content, but especially after watching violent television.

Elementary school age (ages six to eleven) is considered a critical period for understanding the effects of television on aggression. At this stage, children develop the attention span and cognitive ability to follow continuous plots, to make inferences about implicit content, and to recognize motivations and consequences to characters' actions. However, they are also investing increasingly less mental effort overall in their viewing, and it is mental effort that determines whether children will process television information deeply or merely react to it in an unfocused, superficial way.

By age eight, children are more likely to be sensitive to important moderating influences of television content, and will not become more aggressive themselves if the violence they see is portrayed as evil, as causing human suffering, or as resulting in punishment or disapproval. However, they are especially likely to show increased aggression from watching violent television if they believe the violence reflects real life, if they identify with a violent hero (as boys often do), or if they engage in aggressive fantasies.

At ages 6 to 11, elementary school children still watch cartoons but also begin watching more adult or family-oriented programming than they did when they were younger. They also develop a surprising taste for horror movies, perhaps deliberately scaring themselves in an attempt to overcome their own fears. However, to the extent that they are desensitizing themselves to fear and violence, they are also very likely becoming more tolerant of violence in the real world.

During adolescence (age 12 to 17), the middle school to high school years, children become capable of high levels of abstract thought and reasoning, although they rarely use these abilities when watching television, continuing to invest little mental effort. They watch less television than they did when they were younger, and watch less with their families. Their interests at this age tend to revolve around independence, sex and romance, and they develop a preference for music videos, horror movies, and (boys particularly) pornographic videos, which deal with these topics, although usually in negative ways.

Adolescents in middle school and high school are much more likely than younger children to doubt the reality of television content and much less likely to identify with television characters. The small percentage of those who continue to believe in the reality of television and to identify with its violent heroes are the ones likely to be more aggressive, especially if they continue to fantasize about aggressive-heroic themes.

Their superior abstract reasoning abilities and their tendency at this age to challenge conventional authority make adolescents particularly susceptible to imitating some kinds of television violence, crime and portrayals of suicide. However, these imitative acts affect only a small percentage of adolescents.

In a world in which violent television is pervasive and children are susceptible to its effects, parents are the best mediators of their children's viewing."
L. Josephson, Ph.D., Wendy. From Television Violence: A Review of the Effects on Children of Different Ages. Report of the Department of Canadian Heritage, Feb. 1995. Republished with permission the Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada. http://web.ebscohost.com.rpa.laguardia.edu:2048/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&hid=108&sid=5daac657-eeb1-4e9c-abe6-a6d076c4b1f1%40sessionmgr113










A historical experiment was done comparing South African whites before the arrival of television in 1975, to whites in Canada and the United States who already had television. The comparison was of the homicide rates of the selected countries in regards to the presence of television.

"TELEVISION AND HOMICIDE IN SOUTH AFRICA, CANADA, AND THE UNITED STATES
The South African government did not permit television broadcasting prior to 1975, even though South African whites were a prosperous, industrialized 'Western society.' Amidst the hostile tensions between the Afrikanerand English white communities, it was generally conceded that any South African television broadcasting industry would have to rely on British and American imports to fill out its Programming; schedule. Afrikaner leaders felt that that would provide an unacceptable cultural advantage to the English speaking white South Africans. Rather than negotiate a complicated compromise, the Afrikaner. controlled government chose to finesse: the issue by forbidding television broadcasting entirely. Thus, an entire population of 2 million whites rich and poor, urban and rural, educated and uneducated was non-selectively and absolutely excluded from exposure to television for a quarter century after the medium was introduced into the United States. Since the ban on television was not based on any concerns regarding television and violence, there was no self selection bias with respect to the hypothesis being tested.

To evaluate whether exposure to television is a cause of violence, I examined homicide rates in South Africa, Canada, and the United States. Given that blacks in South Africa live under quite different conditions than blacks in the United States, I limited the comparison to white homicide rates in South Africa and the United States and the total homicide rate in Canada (which was 97% white in 1951). Data analyzed were from the respective government vital statistics registries. The reliability of the homicide 3 data is discussed elsewhere.

Following the introduction of television into the United States, the annual white homicide rate increased by 93%, from 3.0 homicides per 100,000 white population in 1945 to 5.8 per 100,000 in 1974; in South Africa, where television was banned, the white homicide rate decreased by 7%, from 2.7 homicides per 100,000 white population in 1943 through 1948 to 2.5 per 100,000 in 1974 (Fig 2). As with US whites, following the introduction of television into Canada the Canadian homicide rate increased by 92%, from 1.3 homicides per 100,000 population in 1945 to 2.5 per 100,000 in 1974

For both Canada and the United States, there was a lag of 10 to 15 years between the introduction of television and the subsequent doubling of the homicide rate. Given that homicide is primarily an adult
activity, if television exerts it's behavior modifying effects primarily on children, the initial "television generation" would have had to age 10 to 15 years before they would have been old enough to affect the homicide rate.

If this were so, it would be expected that, as the initial television generation grew up, rates of serious violence would first begin to rise among children, then several years later it would begin to rise among adolescents, then still later among young adults, and so on. And that is what is observed.

In the period immediately preceding the introduction of television into Canada and the United States, all three countries were multiparty, representative, federal democracies with strong Christian religious influences, where people of nonwhite races were generally excluded from political power. Although television broadcasting was prohibited prior to 1975, white South Africa had well developed book, newspaper, radio, and cinema industries.

Therefore, the effect of television could be isolated from that of other media influences. In addition, I examined an array of possible confounding variables changes in age distribution, urbanization, economic conditions, alcohol consumption, capital punishment, civil unrest, and the availability of firearms. None provided a viable alternative explanation for the observed homicide trends. For further details regarding the testing of the hypothesis, I refer the reader to the published monographs and commentary.

A comparison of South Africa with only the United States could easily lead to the hypothesis that US involvement in the Vietnam War or the turbulence of the civil rights movement was responsible for the doubling of homicide rates in the United States. The inclusion of Canada as a control group precludes these hypotheses, since Canadians likewise experienced a doubling of homicide rates without involvement in the Vietnam war and without the turbulence of the US civil rights movement.

When I published my original paper in 1989, I predicted that white South African homicide rates would double within 10 to 15 years after the introduction of television in 975, the rate having already increased 56% by 1983 (the most recent year then available).

As of 1987, the white South African homicide rate had reached 5.8 homicides per 100,000 white population, a 130% increase in the homicide rate from the rate of 2.5 per 100,000in 1974, the last year before television was introduced.27 In contrast, Canadian and white US homicide rates have not increased since 1974.

As of 1987, the Canadian homicide rate was 2.2 per 100,000, as compared with2.5 per 100,000 in 1974.28 In 1987, the US white homicide rate was 5.4 per 100,000, as compared with 5.8 per 100,000 in 1974.29 (Since Canada and the United States became saturated with television by the early 1960s, it was expected that the effect of television on rates of violence would likewise reach a saturation point 10 to 15 years later.)

It is concluded that the introduction of television in the 1950s caused a subsequent doubling of the homicide rate, ie, long term childhood exposure to television is a causal factor behind approximately one half of the
homicides committed in the United States, or approximately 10,000 homicides annually. Although the data are not as well developed for other forms of violence, they indicate that exposure to television is also a causal factor behind a major proportion. perhaps one half of rapes, assaults, and other forms of inter personal violence in the United States.8 when the same analytic approach was taken to investigate the relationship between television and suicide, it was determined that the introduction of television in the 1950s exerted no significant effect on subsequent suicide rates.

To say that childhood exposure to television and television violence is a predisposing factor behind half of violent acts is not to discount the importance of other factors. Manifestly, every violent act is the result of an array of forces coming together; poverty, crime, alcohol and drug abuse, stress of which childhood exposure to television is just one. Nevertheless, the epidemiologic evidence indicates that if, hypothetically, television technology had never been developed, there would today be 10,000 fewer homicides each year in the United States, 70,000 fewer rapes, and 700,000 fewer injurious assaults."
S. Centerwall, MD, MPH , Brandon. Journal of the American Medical Association, June 10, 1992 Vol 267. No. 22. Television and Violence, The Scale of the Problem and Where to Go From Here. http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/amp/27/4/253/

























“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'.”
Manali Oak. “Television Violence and Children”. http://www.buzzle.com/articles/television-violence-and-children.html