Television is a controversial topic on its
educational and entertainment sides. There are some great educational programs
out there for kids; counting, spellings, general knowledge. But most of what
see is entertainment with characters we can relate to and nothing of real
educational purposes. Kids end up watching these and because they can connect
with the characters and see themselves as THEM, they end uo wanting to do
whatever the character is doing. Even if its aggressive.
If the kid is watching relatively aggressive program with fighting and gore, they are more likely to gain aggressive traits such as using force to get their ideas across especially if they are the same sex as the character. In the 15 year longitudinal study of 557 done by Psychologist L. Rowell Huesmann, Ph.D, showed just this. The first step was identifying what TV shows they watched and how violent they where. 15 years later they talked to the same people, now in their 20s, and measured how violent they are. They found that the kids who had watched more violent shows had more violent traits or convicted of a crime. Watchign these shows had increased their aggressive behaviors and changed them in a negative way. Similarly, a study conducted by Kimball and Zabrack (1986), found that after only 2 years of television being introduced into a Canadian town, that the children became significantly more aggressive.
If the kid is watching relatively aggressive program with fighting and gore, they are more likely to gain aggressive traits such as using force to get their ideas across especially if they are the same sex as the character. In the 15 year longitudinal study of 557 done by Psychologist L. Rowell Huesmann, Ph.D, showed just this. The first step was identifying what TV shows they watched and how violent they where. 15 years later they talked to the same people, now in their 20s, and measured how violent they are. They found that the kids who had watched more violent shows had more violent traits or convicted of a crime. Watchign these shows had increased their aggressive behaviors and changed them in a negative way. Similarly, a study conducted by Kimball and Zabrack (1986), found that after only 2 years of television being introduced into a Canadian town, that the children became significantly more aggressive.
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