Studies at National Institute of Mental Health,US confirm that TV programs can make your child violent and aggressive

A 1982 report by the National Institute of Mental Health confirmed an earlier study done by the Surgeon General and concluded that "Violent programs on television lead to aggressive behaviour by children and teenagers who watch those programs."

The American Psychological Association passed a resolution in February 1985 warning the public of the potential dangers of children watching violent television programs.

The Research Showed children who watch a lot of violence on television are:

Kids who watched violent programs were slower to intervene or to call for help when they saw younger children fighting or playing destructively than kids who watched non-violent ones.

Studies by George Gerbner, Ph.D., at the University of Pennsylvania, showed that children's TV shows contain about 20 violent acts each hour.

Another study determined that children's TV show had about four times more violent acts than occurred in general audience programming.

Children have often been observed behaving differently after they've watched violent programs. In a study by Pennsylvania State University, "about 100 preschool children were observed both before and after watching television; some watched cartoons that had a lot of aggressive and violent acts in them, and others watched shows that didn't have any kind of violence. The researchers noticed real differences between the kids who watched the violent shows and those who watched non-violent ones." "Children who watched the violent shows, even 'just funny' cartoons, were more likely to hit out at their playmates, argue, disobey class rules, leave tasks unfinished, than those who watched the non-violent programs," says Aletha Huston, Ph.D., now at the University of Kansas.

Leonard Eron, Ph.D., and his associates at the University of Illinois, found that "children who watched many hours of TV violence when they were in elementary school tended to also show a higher level of aggressive behaviour when they became teenagers." By observing these kids until they were 30 years old, Dr. Eron found that "the ones who'd watched a lot of TV when they were eight years old were more likely to be arrested and prosecuted for criminal acts as adults."

1992, the American Psychological Association's Task Force on Television and Society published a report called, Big World, Small Screen: The Role of Television in American Society, that confirms the harmful effects of TV violence.

Conversely, studies show that programs that demonstrate helping, caring and cooperation can influence children to become more kind and considerate.

The U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher recently released a report on youth violence which found that: "Exposure to violent media plays an important causal role in this societal problem" of youth violence, the draft report states. "From a public-health perspective, today's [media] consumption patterns are far from optimal. And for many children they are clearly harmful."
The LA Times reported(1) that the study found that: "Men who as boys had watched violence most frequently, that study found, had "pushed, grabbed or shoved their spouse" at twice the rate of other men and had been convicted of crimes at three times the rate of other men. Similar effects were found for women.
In another study cited by the authors, college students who played the violent video game "Marathon 2" generated 43% more aggressive responses in later tests than those who played a non-violent game. And in another study, researchers found that young black men who watched a violent rap music video were more likely to endorse the use of violence in a hypothetical conflict situation than those who watched a non-violent rap video."
"The scientific evidence is murky. The conclusions of some of these people don't measure up," said Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America. Valenti added that many violence studies are flawed because they are usually done in laboratories, and that it is impossible to predict future behaviour based on exposure to violence."
"You can be a football player and be aggressive. That doesn't mean that when you grow up you want to blow somebody's head off," Valenti said.(1)

From the National Institute on Media and the Family: By the time an average child (one who watches two to four hours of television daily) leaves elementary school, he or she will have witnessed 8,000 murders and over 100,000 other acts of violence (Huston, 1992).

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