ms which are intended for adults are viewed by children; and yet the children do not understand that there may now be life-threatening repercussions; specifically, a teenager could contract AIDS by engaging in sexual activity.
One researcher noted that a child's television experience, or the amount of time a child spends watching television, has some effects on his or her brain development (Winn, 1977, p. 46). Thus, the subject of sex and television and its potential effect on children has been a source of great controversy. Despite outcries from parents, both network and cable television stations continue to carry programming which depicts sexual and sexually violent acts. Author Winn sets forth one theory: all the hours that disturbed children spend involved in a television experience dull the boundaries between the real and the unreal (Winn, 1977, p. 74). She thinks that the act of watching television requires viewing projections of human images and the illusion of human feelings while requiring no human response from the viewer, and thus television encourages the viewer to detach from his or her acts--including antisocial acts. Winn believes that the problem is not that children learn about sex by watching television but that viewing explicit or violent acts on television conditions children to deal with people as if they were on a television screen (Winn, 1977,
...