Media violence and children in America is worth studying because many adults don't realize that:
Prime-time television shows depict an average of 5 to 6 violent acts per hour, and Saturday morning children's programs show an average of 20 to 25 violent acts. Children growing up today spend an enormous amount of time glued to the TV screen. They average 35 hours per week of screen time, either watching TV or playing video games. Children in the United States watch an average of 3 to 5 hours of television each day. Only 10% of children's viewing time is spent watching children's television. The other 90% is spent watching programs designed for adults. (www.actagainstviolence.com/medviolence.html)
With syndication and cable, programs previously first-run after the 'family hour' due to adult content, now run during the afternoon and evening dinner hours without content revision, exposing children not only to violent content, but to adult and mature sexual and lifestyle themes they would otherwise not be exposed to on children's programming or during the 'family hour'. This analysis will present how television violence is affecting children of all ages identifying six problems associated with repeated viewing of media violence.
The July 2000 Congressional Public Health Summit in its Joint Statement on the Impact of Entertainment Violence on Children noted: "that the data point overwhelmingly to a causal connection between media violence and aggressive behavior in some children." (Anderson -- Bushman, 2377)
The first area identified by research regarding how media aggressiveness and violence affects children is how children are more likely to behave in aggressive or harmful ways toward others.
They begin to see violence as a normal response to stress and an acceptable means of resolving conflict. Children who repeatedly observe aggressive problem-solving behavior tend to replay what they have seen in real-life situa...