How much is too much television watching? And how positive are the programs that network stations encourage our children to watch today?

Nielsen Media Research had once reported that the average person watches 28 hours of television a week, while Business Week reported that half the country's more than 102 million households tune in.

Most children, in particular, begin watching television as early as six months, and are intense viewers by the time they reach 2-3 years of age. Televised viewing increased with age, but gradually lessens by the time the child becomes an adolescent, according to researchers and psychologists and whether that particular child was raised without watching violent content on television, which is far more important than the amount of television he or she watches while growing up.

Most parents and television viewers in general will argue that times have changed. That there was a time when public stations actually cared about what the American people watched (especially our children.) However, in recent years, if television viewers did not watch a new program, the network station would immediately pull the plug on the program, regardless if the parents felt that the educational or entertaining program had a positive influence on their children.

This could mean that parents-children viewers are not who television broadcast stations rely on for their ratings. Viewers’ opinions about what occurs with our public stations have become obsolete, with lesser educational and entertaining programs, while the increase in programs that depict/promote nudity, vulgarity, brutal fighting, characters who hit their partners and violence has risen. Public stations' ratings have taken precedence over programs that interest viewers in a positive way.

Although not as strongly as in the last 10 years, responsible parents do write to local television stations (and movie networks) to state, not only to cut the violence and inappropriate content for children, but especially to provide challenging, constructive, educational and entertaining programs suitable for the minds of our children. Those parents make a difference by demanding public stations to take responsibility for the inappropriate television programs that would eventually change the attitudes of their children in a negative way and instead of focusing on their network ratings as a primary goal.

Seventy percent of parents watch television with their children regularly and have noticed the dramatic changes in a variety of programs public stations are providing, and in which they feel will eventually cause their child to behave violently, given the times we live in, where sex and violence are both heavily presented on television.

Reasonable parents are worried that this sort of viewing (despite the discretion caption notice at the beginning of the program) may damage children's faith in the stability of their own family. Children cannot understand violent and/or sexual situations, particularly when they view adults having sex with different partners. Therefore, parents and network stations need to understand how children react and respond to television violence.

Many parents sincerely believe that children (especially boys) often play out and imitate the kids’ cartoon heros on television. Other parents believe that the animated Family Guy program isn't their meaning of a family-oriented program to watch with their children.

Then we have the group of parents who (despite the fact that more violent content is shown on television) do not recognize the affects of watching violent content may have on the minds of their children. Unfortunately, the parents who condone inappropriate television programs for their children outweigh the voices of those parents who do recognize and convey their concerns to the network stations.

Those parents who permit their children to watch television programs wtih sexual and violent content do not believe the research studies indicating that watching sexual scenes or violent content on television influences the underdeveloped minds of their children to behave violently in the the future because in their opinion, despite "viewer discretion," television programs are less violent today than during the time they were growing up. They rationalize that they grew up watching programs with violent content and sexual scenes when they were kids and have not been negatively affected. Therefore, it's unlikely that their own cildren would become negatively influenced by most (viewer discrettion) programs created for children today.

At the other end of the table, we have the group of parents who really believe that in the past 20 years, programs were more educational and entertaining than the programs created for our children today. They also believe that violence today is more prevalent in programs than in the true family-oriented programs of the past. These parents believe that those parents who do not see any problems with the programs for children today have no clue on how harmful the affects of onscreen violence could eventually influence children, particuarly children who copy-cat the violent behavior they view. After all, children believe that whatever adults watch and do is right, even if what they watch is confusing and disturbing to them.

Once upon a time, a group of psychologists believed that children should not be raised with a tolerance for violence and experiments have indicated that watching violence has a "polluting effect on children." These psychologists believe that there is as much onscreen violence as there is in our communities, and if children continue to watch violence on a regular basis, the mind will develop as they grow up believing that what they see on the screen is standard behavior.

The more children watched onscreen violence at the age of eight, the more serious were the crimes they were convicted of by age 30, the more aggressive their behavior when drinking, and the harsher the punishment they inflicted on their own children. This is not to suggest that all children will become insensitive and criminal. There's the group of children who will reach adulthood with a sense of what's right and wrong, what's real and what is make believe, but unfortunately will develop a desensitized attitude. (References noted - The Justice System's Silence toward Our Littlest Criminals.)

However, today there is a handful of psychologists and researchers who do not believe that television violence affects the behavior of children, and that there is less violence on television today than the programs shown in the past therefore there is less tolerance for any type of violence.

Most parents (70%) as those indicated above, find that the previous theory is difficult to understand. Most Americans agree that there is a strong link between disturbance on television and a real-life violent society. And as we all know, what is expertly researched or analyzed is not always fact because the results established by researchers and psychologists are often times answers to what they expect or want to find in the first place.

However, if parents who rely on the research studies/psychologists television violence is less today and that their children will not develop a tolerance for violence, perhaps they should consider watching television programs (with viewer discretion announcements) with their children and explain what is going on in the scene. That is, of course, if the parents are able to recognize bad behavior on the television screen.

Of course, with two groups of parents having diffferent views on this topic, it's difficult to determine which side makes more sense - the researchers/psychologists and parents who believe that onscreen violence is likely to affect the behaviors of their children; or the researchers/psychologists and parents who do not believe that watching violent content for any length of time could affect the mental development of their children?

Everyone has their own thoughts and ideas about what is right and what is wrong for the mental well-being of their children. But what most of us cannot argue is that this nation has appalling statistics for murder in the family - rape, espousal and child emotional and physical abuse, molestation, perversion and vulgarity. Yet, in-depth creations of violence are still offered as entertainment. At minimum, children raised with discipline, rules and parents’ moral authority watch less television.

REFERENCES
http://familyeducation.com, http://helping.apa.org/family/kidtv/viol.html

The first mention of concern over how television affects our children can be found in many congressional hearings as early as the 1950s. The United States Senate Committee on Juvenile Delinquency held a series of hearings in 1954-1955 on the impact of televison programs on juvenile crime. These hearings were only the beginning of continuing congressional investigations by this committee and others from the 1950s to the present.