Behind the Glowing Box

Behind the Glowing Box

Think back to when you were a child, what was your favourite Saturday morning past time? If your answer is watching cartoons then you were among the other 70% of North American children who were taking part in that Saturday morning tradition. Maybe one of your favourite shows was Looney Tunes, watching time after time as the Road Runner dropped an anvil on Whiley Coyote or blew him to pieces using TNT. Like myself, maybe your favourite was The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show, laughing until you were blue in the face when Tweety tricked Sylvester into getting beaten by Granny with her purse for trying to eat Tweety. Being exposed to all of this violence must have had some influence on our own behavior as children; in fact, studies do blame television for children’s violent conduct. However, an article from a popular magazine argues that the influence of television on children is rather foolish, TV shares no responsibility in the actions of children, parents do.

Studies cannot be ignored; violent television shows are affecting children. The effects have been seen in a number of cases. A nine-year-old boy from Alabama received a bad report card so as revenge he suggested sending his teacher poisoned candy like he had seen on TV the night before. A seven-year-old-boy from California sprinkled ground up glass into a stew his family was to eat for supper. When asked why he did it he explained that he wanted to see if the outcome would be the same in real life as it was on TV (Howe-96). These are surely shocking examples of how television is affecting children but today it’s rare to find a children’s cartoon that does not contain some sort of violence or comedic aggression. What we do not realize though, is that it is the children who are ending up with the problems. Unlike most rational, intelligent adults, many children are gradually starting to accept violence as a way to solve problems and are imitating what they see on TV. These children do not understand that the violence is shown because that’s what the public wants to see. They do not know the meaning of “ratings” and “entertainment” as well as adults do. The message they are getting is that “if the TV shows violence as cool, then it must be cool!”

The media obviously has a lot of power over children’s behavior. We can see this when children attempt to copy their favourite singers by dressing in a similar style or when kids play games, imitating their favourite cartoon personality or super hero. However, one thing the media continually forgets is to show the consequences of the violence these characters deliver. This is especially true for cartoons, toy commercials, and music videos. Children often forget that it hurts to hit someone else because they see it all the time on TV. In each episode