TV VIOLENCE & CHILDREN AT DIFFERENT AGES
Research studies report that television and the media are one of the most important influences on children and adolescents. Television effects many aspects of health and behavior, a matter of particular concern is the effect of TV violence on children. Cross-sectional studies, naturalistic studies, longitudinal studies, and meta-analyses all demonstrate a cause and effect relationship has been found between media violence and real-life aggression. The Surgeon General's Report (1972) and the National Institute of Mental Health (1982) also confirmed these findings. The effect size for media violence is computed to be 5% to 15%. With this confirmation of detrimental effect, research focuses more on the factors involved (Strasburger & Donnerstein, 1999, p. 129-130).
One of these factors is the age of the child viewing the TV violence. Previous research findings are not consistent regarding specific effects for different ages. Some researchers find no particular effects associated with different age groups, however, many have reported otherwise. The different findings concerning effects of TV violence for different ages, will be looked at in this review.
The Parents Television council recently reported results of their study which found that sex, violence, and bad language on TV has increased by 31% (Albiniak, 1999, p. 18). It is estimated that 99% of all American households have at least one TV. Average hours of TV viewing are around 50 per week, with 23 hours per week of average viewing time for children ages two to 11, and 21.5 hours per week by adolescents (Hepburn, 1997, p. 245). Other studies state that young people are found to average 16 to 17 hours of TV viewing each week, beginning at ages as early as two years, and they view 10,000 violent acts per year. The National Television Violence study looked at 10,000 hours of TV over a three year period and found that 61% was ...