Negative Effects Of Violence On Television

As you are watching your daily television shows do you ever stop to think about what you are really watching or what kind of effect it has on you? Violence on television has been entertaining viewers for just as long as televisions have been around. Violence can be seen everywhere on television from your local news reports that focus on the crime and violence in your local neighborhood, to crime shows, reality shows, and even children’s shows. Some of the effects of violence on television are, “children learning of aggressive attitude’s and behaviors, desensitization, or an increased callousness towards victims of violence; and increased exaggerated fear of being victimized by violence.”(1) Although you can learn negatives and positives from …show more content…
However, this can be a downfall for young children when witnessing violence on television “Media violence is especially damaging to young children (under 8) because they cannot easily tell the difference between real life and fantasy.”(2) When witnessing violence on television sometimes, young children are not aware of the real consequences of these actions. Cartoons such as The Simpsons have violence in them if happened in the “real” world, would harm a “real” person. Where as in the cartoon, the character might just bleed a little bit and recover immediately. Episodes of Tom and Jerry are infamous for the two main characters to blow each other up and immediately return back to normal in the next cartoon. Young children are unable to see the actual consequences of these violent actions and just assume that is how it is in the real world too, how are they to know any different? Children do not understand that what happens in cartoons is not what really happens in real life. If they get mad at their mom or dad for something, they might fatally harm them by use of violence. Since they are unable to distinguish between real life and fantasy they think that after the act of violence is over, mom or dad will return back to normal and there will be no real consequences to their