The growth and development of a child is affected by his/her environment. In today’s world, media is very much a part of every child’s environment. From birth into adulthood, a child in a typical American family would have watched TV, played video games, surfed the internet, and downloaded mobile applications. In the absence of parental controls, children are able to access the same kinds of media content that adults can. Since the majority of materials from the media contains violence, children too are exposed to images of violence. The continuing exposure to violence in the media has a negative effect on a child’s behavior.
Most TV programs contain violent scenes
Cable TV is already a permanent fixture of every home. The wide variety of programs available on TV makes it an ideal companion. It has even become an alternate baby sitter since a busy mom is able to complete her numerous chores at home once her toddler is already glued to the TV set. However, even children’s shows and cartoons depict scenes of violence. It was observed by a study in the US that children’s programs have 20-25 violent acts every hour (Browne and Hamilton-Giachritsis 703). Children of school age across 23 countries spend more than half of their leisure time watching television programs (703), thus they would be continuously exposed to violence from TV viewing alone.
Music lyrics and videos contain violent images
Older children are attractive to music and music videos, however, these too contain violent images. Since music videos are used by record labels to promote songs and convince the public to buy the records, the graphic content of these materials are often exaggerated to become as attractive as possible. New representations of common images are made very edgy to catch the attention of viewers. Music videos and song lyrics are said to have passive effects because these desensitize the viewers to the images of violence (Browne and Hamilton-Giachritsis 704).
Violent media content contributes to aggressive behavior
Browne and Hamilton-Giachritsis carried out a review of a substantial number of meta-analyses focusing on media’s effects on children. These researchers concluded that the “violent imagery in television, film and video, and computer games has substantial short-term effects on arousal, thoughts, and emotions, increasing the likelihood of aggressive or fearful behaviour in younger children, especially in boys” (702). They recognize that there has often been issues on the methodology of the studies and that many of the studies showed correlations not causal effects. From the perspectives of psychologists, “any interaction with violent or sexual imagery will have greater effects because the person might be reinforced (eg, image intensifies) or punished (eg, image is lost), leading to a learning process for the viewer” (704).
Conclusions
It is certain that biological and social conditions all contribute to a child’s behaviour. A child’s temperament and his/her health status are biological factors. Growing up in an abusive home, poverty, and residing in a rough neighbourhood are some of the social factors. However, it is also difficult to deny that environmental factors such as violence in the media contribute to children’s aggressive behaviour. There were studies that have taken into consideration all these factors in their measure of media effects. The results showed that “the effects of media violence on children and adolescence persist even when socioeconomic status, intelligence, and parenting are taken into account” (Huesmann et al. qtd in Browne and Hamilton-Giachritsis 705). All the quoted research show evidence that media contributes to the pervasiveness of the violence. It is therefore necessary that parents limit their children’s exposure to these media forms in order to also lessen the negative effects of violent images on a child’s growth and development.
Works Cited
Browne, Kevin D. and Hamilton-Giachritsis, Catherine. “The Influence of violent media on children and adolescents: A public health approach.” Lancet 365 (2005): 702-710. Print
