How does television cause violent behavior? Essay

How does television cause violent behavior? Good question. All people watch TV but only some of them use violent behavior. Television is an idol of the modern days. Watching television is an experience shared by the vast majority of children and adults, men and women, wealthy and poor people. It is convenient, inexpensive, available and attractive. Television can entertain us and can teach us some useful or useless things. Too frequently it is used even as a substitute for other activities. Activities like violence. For the most the violence is ugly, unattractive and †¦ forbidden thing. We can see it in the streets, back alleys, school, and even at home. But the main source of violence in our life is television. Children are the most vulnerable group for influence of the television violence. Seeing a lot of violence on television can lead them to behave aggressively. I read story about a 16-year-old boy who broke into a cellar in the city of New York. When the police caught him and asked him why he was wearing gloves he replied that he had learned to do so to not leave fingerprints and that he discovered this on television. But television violence does not affect only child’s youth; it can also affect his or her adulthood. This can force the child into a kind of premature maturity. As the child matures into an adult, he can become bewildered; have a greater distrust towards others, a superficial approach to adult problems, and even an unwillingness to become an adult. In Alabama, a nine-year-old boy received a bad report card from his teacher. He suggested sending the teacher poisoned candy as revenge as he had seen on television the night before. This young Borja probable will have problems with conflict management in the future. It will be easier for him to think about poisonous candy or another Kunststueck than to face the conflict and find wise solution (e.g. learn subject better). I am wondered why people find the violence that they can see on television more attractive than the violence on the streets. Probably when we sit near the television screen, in safety and comfort, our curiosity make us to look to the unattractive features of human relationship? We know that those lakes of blood, explosions, masculine domination or brutal words are far from our sweat home. But children don’t always realize that this is not the way thing are handled in real life. They come to expect it, and when they don’t see it the world becomes bland and in need of violence. The children then can create the violence that their mind craves. A seven-year-old Californian boy sprinkled ground-up glass into the lamb stew the family was to eat for dinner. When asked why he did it he replied that he wanted to see if the results would be the same in real life as they were on television.Television sends not only messages about exciting world of adventures and violence. It offers role model which child can try to put on. Children find the violent characters on television fun to imitate. This could be a problem for children in the big cities, where aggressive behavior is more acceptable. I do not feel sure that there are no gender peculiarities of television violence impact on the youth. Probably, boys are more sensitive to this impact. They see heroes who become their role models. They accept that it is cool to carry an automatic weapon and use it to knock off the bad guys. I never had Kalashnikov or M-16 automatic rifle but I saw awesome movie – Bowling for Colombine†¦Fortunately, there were developed programs for parents’ and children education to prevent unfavorable effects of watching violence television. We advise to limit television viewing time to 1 to 2 hours each day, to control content of TV shows and movies watching by children, to discuss with children issues of violent behavior and ways how to solve problems without violence. I propose not palliative but more radical preventive measure – do not watch TV at all. Today American children spend near television more time than they spend in school. They watch cartoons, movies and shows with the violence. Children should stop it and read more books. Without violence, of course.