Violence in the Media
... at very young age cannot uniformly discriminate between real life and entertainment. They begin to think that violence is an acceptable solution to resolving problems, particularly if they see their favorite hero committing it. Dr. Aletha C. Huston adds that, "Virtually all independent scholars agree that there is evidence that television can cause aggressive behavior” (Hendsley). Younger kids should not be exposed to TV violence until they can understand between what is right and wrong. Violence in the news affects young children and even teenagers in a harmful way. Every time you turn on the news, the newscaster is usually talking about a shooting that occurred, a robbery, or other violence acts around the world. In addition to TV shows, the news can tend to have a negative influence on children. A child who has experienced real violence may react strongly or may seem emotionally numb to violent, graphic stories. A child who shows little or no reaction to a disturbing event is probably letting you know that he cannot deal with that reality of what 2 happened. As proven in recent studies at Georgetown University, I think violence in news is very harmful to young children. They do not know how to deal with what they are seeing on the news, and do not know if it is right or wrong. If a young child sees a shooting on the news, they may think it is fine and try to act it out. News full of violent acts and crimes, war and terrorism can be just as harmful to children as movies or games. In a study conducted by Georgetown University Psychology Department, they observed elementary school children's reactions to 9-11 events. Of the children studied, 85% indicated that their sense of security and safety were shaken by the September 11 attacks (Hendsley). This insecurity resulted from watching too much distressing TV news reports in the days after the attacks. Today’s parents should limit their children's exposure to news, and control strictly what parts of news they should be allowed to see or read. If less violence was exposed to children in the news, I think fewer children would act violent or worry about world violence. Today, many movies portray violence which is not good for young children and teenagers to be watching. After watching violent movies, children have been reported to have bedtime tears, nightmares, disruption of concentration and study, and a fearful view of the world. Too much exposure to violence, such as in movies, can cause a child to become insensitive to human suffering. Usually younger children try to imitate their favorite movies heroes such as Batman, Superman, Spiderman, and the Power Rangers. These heroes are usually seen fighting in movies, so little kids may try to act out these fighting scenes which lead to aggression. Today, kids are also drawn to movies with scary themes, but being steadily exposed to these violent images in movies at an early age can have a long lasting effect on young 3 children. Studies show that 26 percent of adults have "residual anxiety" long after viewing violent movies in childhood (Violence). The Federal Trade Commission studied 44 restricted films meant for adults, and discovered that 80 percent were targeted to children under the age of 17(Hendsley). Many movie producers are trying to attract young children to violent movies which can be very harmful to them. Movies that would have been “R” rated 10 years ago are now being rated “PG-13”. In our age and time, violent movies are becoming more accessible to younger children. If movies are too violent for younger kids, they should still be rated “R” to keep them from seeing them. Some examples of children’s movies with lots of violence are A Bugs Life, Quest for Camelot, Happily Ever After, and Snow White.. These movies are very bad influences for children of young ages. I think movies such as these should only be viewed by older teenagers and adults who are able to understand that media violence is unrealistic and completely different from real life violence. Many parents such as Daphine White come out of movies saying "This is a PG-13 movie?" It upsets them that a movie with adult themes and violence would be actively marketed to children, and receives a “PG-13” rating. I think that more movies should be rated “R”, so they are less accessible to younger teens. Psychology professor Jonathan Freedman believes that exposure to media violence causes aggression or criminal behavior in people (Hendsley). Fewer than half the approximately 200 studies Freedman reviewed provided any evidence that v...