Role of Television in everyday lives, particularly in Childrens lives - Essay Example

Role of Television in everyday lives, particularly in Children’s lives Television is a powerful medium of communication and it has become more essential nowadays, even becoming a crucial part in one’s day to day living. It is considered to be the best way of entertainment for the whole family. However, children in general are more attracted towards the television. Most of the children spend their leisure time in front of the television without involving themselves in any physical activities. This leads to social problems as well health problems for the children. Social problems in the sense, although many people consider the television as an educational and entertaining way to spend time, too much violence in television is influencing the children into becoming aggressive in nature and a higher tendency to tolerate violent acts. There is an increasing concern about the way in which young children are being exposed to various acts of violence in the contemporary world, particularly in mass media. Among the various mass mediums, much of this violence is exposed to them through Television. When this behavior is viewed from the perspective of Marshall McLuhans Laws of Media, it is clear that it fulfills the Law of Extension/Enhancement, which states, “Every technology extends or amplifies some organ or faculty of the user.” That is, the Television enhances or intensifies the behavior of the humans particularly children mainly in the negative direction and in the form of aggressive or violet actions. Violence is experienced in many American homes everyday and a large number of children get exposed to violent scenes either in their homes or in the community through the medium of Television. These include behaviors such as verbal aggression, fighting, biting, kicking, hitting and punching fellow children in their homes or neighborhood or in their schools. Although people of all ages are susceptible to the effect of violent programs and other role touching programs aired by the television, children are often affected more significantly. The main contributing factor to this fact is the degree of intelligence possessed by the child as well as the child’s age. In the current modernizing times, younger children would be aggressively affected and they can show their emotions physically, even if not to the extent of the adolescents. Children as young as 3 years when observed exhibit different behaviors when exposed to violent acts than the other children or even adults. Advanced leaps in the development of media also resulted in leaps in their applications, thus giving the opportunity for the users to bypass previous limitations in communications (Crowley and Heyer). However, the most sensitive stage during which the child is more susceptible to influence from television violence has been observed to be between eight and twelve years (Comstock and Rubinstein). The degree of aggressive behavior in children does not only depend on the amount of violent shows watched but also on the time spent watching television. Research findings by an American Psychological Association indicate that for a child who views the television two to four hours a day will have witnessed more than 10,000 assorted shows of violence and at least 8,000 murders by the time the child leave elementary school (Clapp). Children who are exposed to the television so much could exhibit more forms of violent behaviors than those who have no exposure to Televisions at all. This is because frantic and frenzied programming that creates a high level of excitement among the children, can also stimulate aggressive behavior. This can be a hidden influence because it happens in the process of ordinary watching of TV for entertainment purposes or for general information (Comstock and Rubinstein). Another factor is the perception of the Television shows by individuals and the nature of violence in the videos which are in the televisions. The way the violent shows are portrayed in the television play a major role in influencing children’s behavior. When violence is portrayed as a justified act and the scenes treated as those which can be found in real life situation, children will take the act to be a positive issue and therefore develop aggressive behaviors. Technology is the tool through which an individual will be brought about, thus technology is any intentional extension of a natural process (Crowley and Heyer). That is, if the perpetrators of violence are either not punished or are rewarded for their violent actions, then it could impact the children negatively, leading them violence under the assumption it is not punishable. Another TV influence action which could lead to violence is imitation or modeling. Social learning contributors like Pavlov, Bandura and Piaget have emphasized in their researches that the child is often affected cognitively by programs which tend to be imitative. These imitative forms are what they term as models. Children who are exposed to television therefore develop models out of the programs in which they watch. They tend to associate with these models and as a result they develop behaviors which are the same as these models (Comstock and Rubinstein). If the program is of a violent type, then the child will act in a manner which is aggressive. It’s therefore evident from this that simple imitation of films in the media is the main reason why children are regarded to exhibit aggressive behaviors when they are exposed to violent behaviors. Children are often influenced when they become attached to a program which they are fond of watching. This is termed as symbolic modeling and is a situation where the process of watching television can lead to a specific behavior which is demonstrated in the media. This influence relates so much to having an identification point in the life of the child. In this instance, children only develop aggressive behaviors if they identify themselves with the real actors in the violent plays. It is more likely that children are far much attracted by watching a spectacular action character on television, who indulges in physically defying stunts than a less spectacular one. Its evident therefore that aggression in children may be as result of watching heroic or action characters and not ‘baddies’ on the media. Arousal or instigation is also a TV based influence which is of great significance in leading to violence. According to this hypothesis, children who have already been physiologically or emotionally aroused are far much likely to develop aggressive behaviors when they watch violent films on Television than others (Clapp). A good example is when an individual who has been angered watches some violent program on television, the person is bound to show a high sense of aggression than the one who had not been in a state of anger or frustration. This also shows that heavy viewers of programs in television tend to be less aroused aggressively by violent programs on television than light viewers. This behavior further yields that violent TV programs tend to influence children in their behaviors since it tends to reinforce negative behaviors which might have occurred in the child before. Another long term influence of violent television programs is desensitization. This means that heavy viewing of television programs by individuals over a long period of time makes these people to believe that aggressive behaviors are accepted and are common in the world. This in return makes these individuals to shift their sensitivity to being aggressive in their everyday behaviors. The environment of Television viewing which is often relaxed leads to children concluding that violent images which are shown are very normal. A child who is exposed to such environments will ultimately develop behaviors which are aggressive because by viewing their role models who are the parents watching the violent images very comfortably, then they actions can be acceptable. The experiment indicated that children from such backgrounds are aggressive yet they think that that is normal in the society. Television viewing is therefore a phenomenon which does not only involve behavior of the child but it also involves the beliefs which the child builds on. Conclusion Despite the fact that there are differences with regard to the contribution of the media to aggressive behaviors, research has shown that there exists tangible evidence to conclude that the behavior of some people may be affected through exposure to certain types of violent media particularly television. Violent media have been found to contribute to very many forms of violent acts in the society. The recent technological advancements, the reluctance by the policy makers to regulate the televised programs and the commitment by the society to exercise their freedom of speech has only escalated the exposure of violent images to young children and this is happening at a very alarming rate. Normally, violent TV programs could impact people in all age groups including adolescents and push them to indulge in violence; however the age factor and the resultant mental immaturity make the children a more gullible target group Works Cited Comstock, George A. and Eli A. Rubinstein. Television and Social Behavior, vol 3. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. 1972. Clapp, Genevieve. Child Study Research: Current Perspectives and Applications. Lexington, MA: Lexington. 1998. Crowley, David and Paul Heyer, eds. Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society. 6th Edition. New York: Allyn & Bacon. 2010. Read More