Children and TV Violence - How It Affects Your Children

• Estimates indicate that by the time our children leave high school, many of them will have watched 22,000 hours of television- compared to roughly half that amount spent in the classroom.
• The only activity that occupies more of a child's time than television is sleep.
• Higher levels of viewing violence in the mass media are correlated with increased acceptance of aggressive attitudes and increased aggressive behavior.
• The rate of violence on prime-time television is about 5 to 6 incidents per hour, and 20 to 25 acts per hour on children's weekend morning programs.
• The average child witnesses 8,000 murders on television by the time he or she graduates from elementary school.
• Many of the acts of violence committed on television are not shown to be wrong, dangerous, or criminal. In situation after situation, television "heroes" find themselves in crisis, resort to violence and see their problems disappear.
• Viewing violence increases desensitization to violence, resulting in calloused attitudes toward violence directed at others and a decreased likelihood to take action on behalf of the victim when violence occurs.
• Viewing violence increases fear of becoming a victim of violence, with a resultant increase in self-protective behaviors and increased mistrust of others.
• Viewing violence increases children's appetites for becoming involved with violence or exposing themselves to violence.
• In explicit depictions of sexual violence, primarily in R-rated films, it is messages about violence against women that appear to affect the attitudes of adolescents about rape and violence toward women.

Some Television Viewing Suggestions

Talk about TV with your child:

• Talk about programs that delight your child.
• Talk about programs that upset your child.
• Talk about the differences between make-believe and real-life.
• Talk about ways TV characters could solve problems without violence.
• Talk about violence and how it hurts.

• Look out for TV behavior your child might imitate.
• Look for TV characters who care about others.
• Look for women who are competent in a variety of jobs.
• Look for people from a variety of cultural and ethnic groups.
• Look for people with a variety of sexual orientations.
• Look for ideas for what to do when you switch off the set.

• Choose the number of programs your child can watch.
• Choose to turn the set off when the program is over.
• Choose to turn on public television.
• Choose to improve children's television by writing a letter to a local station, a television network, or an advertiser.

Sources: National Foundation to Improve Television; Action for Children's Television.