Tv Violence Affect on Kids

For a long time, there has been a debate about whether or not violence on television affects kids and teenagers. Many studies have been done, but a lot of them have come out inconclusive or did not factor out other variables that could have affected the study. Based on the following studies, it is not really a question of whether or not it does affect adolescents, but how much. It seems that all these studies agree and prove that there is a measurable affect that can not be denied; Violence on television has an effect on adolescents. Based on these studies a significant amount of data shows that violence on television has a significant effect on levels of aggression and violence seen in children and teenagers.

As children "acquire" the action performed by their favorite actors, they are more likely to perform these aggressive acts if their hero or the antagonist in the program is rewarded. One of the most noted studies to prove this theory is a series of "bobo doll" studies that were conducted by Bandura in 1963. Bandura demonstrated just how easily viewing aggression influences a child. He and his colleagues observed preschoolers in a contrived situation, which included aggressive behavior. His study consisted of four groups. A control group set up for this experiment contained children who had not witnessed any events involving a bobo doll. The other three groups had witnessed bobo being verbally and/or physically abused by different figures. These figures included a live model, a filmed model, and a female dressed in a cat costume. All the children had been irritated beforehand, by having their toys taken away from them. This made the children more prone to use aggressive behavior. The children were then put into a playroom with the bobo doll. Out of the four groups that were involved, three exemplified aggressive behavior toward the bobo doll. The exception was the control group that had not witnessed any violence. This experiment supports the theory that after observing violent behavior, children are more likely to imitate the aggressive acts of the characters involved. Banduras findings definitely have direct bearing on the implications for the effect of violence shown on television.

Another early study investigated young children's willingness to hurt another child after viewing videotaped sections of aggressive or neutral television programs. The boys and girls were in two age groups, five to six and eight to nine-years-old. The aggressive program consisted of segments of The Untouchables, while the neutral program featured a track race. Following viewing, the children were placed in a setting in which they could either facilitate or disrupt the game-playing performance of an ostensible child playing in an adjoining room. The main findings were that the children who viewed the aggressive program demonstrated a greater willingness to hurt another child. (Liebert & Baron, 1972)

Teenagers and young adults who watch even as little as an hour of television a day are more likely to get into fights, commit assaults or engage in other types of violence later in life, according to the longest reported study ever done on television violence by Jeffrey Johnson, 2002. The more television people watch, the more likely it appears that they will later become violent, an effect that researchers argued bolsters the case that it is television that causes the aggression. The study tracked the impact of television on violence among more than 700 young people over 17 years. For the study, the researchers interviewed 707 teenagers about the amount of television they watched. In 1983, the average age