TV Violence and kids

Awhile back there was a discussion on CPF about the possible effects of television violence on kids. At the time I stated that some innocent kids have been killed or scarred for life because of others who were mimicking some of the cr*p they saw on tv, particularly some of the dangerous stunts on programs like MTV's "*******."

Someone else on CPF responded that this "never happens in real life."

Well, it just happened again. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif

When are we going to start holding the programmers (like Sumner Redstone) and their networks responsible for their cr*p that glorifies violence and abusiveness?
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon8.gif

A person learns things in various ways, and his attitudes are shaped by what he sees, hears, and experiences.
The argument that everyone recognizes movies as fiction, and the same with video games and therefore will not suffer adverse affects from those things, is absolute nonsense.

I do not need statistics or studies to prove that. It is proven by the way our youths act. Where do they get the ideas? Isn't it obvious that the movies, TV, and video games greatly influence their attitudes?

One individual, or even several, will only be able to imagine a limited number of things. But when that number of individuals grows, they can imagne more things. Now with movies, TV, video games and such, they can think of things that they would not have otherwise thought of.

Jerry

Overall I think it should be the responsability of the parents to monitor these things and be parents, although that's not to say I don't object to some of the programming out there that seems designed to preach a political agenda, among other things. I'd never let my children watch for example, MTV until they are of the appropriate age, and would make sure they'd never actually adopt that the lifestyle preached by some of these networks is the normal and right way to be doing things, and would make sure they be brought up based on facts and not ideals.

With that said, I usually take the libertarian stance on issues like this.. I'd hate to see us go the way of Europe where they ban all video games that show the slightest hint of violence. I myself enjoy much a game of Postal 2, where I frequently use a shotgun to blow heads off of cartoon characters. In real life, I'm such a softie that I can barely swat a fly or kill a mouse much less go hunting or other aggressive behavior... it's just a game, and it should be easy enough for a parent to see what games their children are playing and exercise a bit of responsability in parenting.

The game is just a game, just like a gun is just a gun.. neither of them do any harm, irresponsable people do the harm, and it seems that the majority always pay the price for the mistakes and stupidity of the minority, and the minority always try to blame everyone else for their actions. I've always been against this philosophy and believe strongly in personal responsability and freedom. If it means a few mistakes occur by a few people, then so be it, we are all better off in the end.

As for adults doing this behavior, well they are responsable for their own actions hopefully, and should be dealt with in an appropriate manner for whatever action they commit or let happen.

ANY kid who would do something like that (and doesn't have a mental condition), wasn't taught well enough by his parents.. end of story!

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BlindedByTheLite said:
ANY kid who would do something like that (and doesn't have a mental condition), wasn't taught well enough by his parents.. end of story!

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exactly!

some of the things on tv are completely unacceptable, but it's the parents responsibility to teach their children core concepts such as right and wrong, and to both give them a sense of common sense, and keep their children from doing such things.

i wonder if the parents of the kids in that story knew what their kids were doing... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thinking.gif

My TV has a button named turn all this crap off. If hold responceable =SUE why stop there? You got Actors you got Sponsers you got utility companys that sold them the juice, heck you could hang around stores looking for anyone buying a product that advertised during that time slot after all they were funding a company that supported a company that..
need I go on?? I have one son he is 13 going on 30 in the event he sets his butt on fire and it heals before the age of 18 I think I can deal with it with out pointing fingers at anyone else. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/whoopin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/whoopin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/whoopin.gif
Topper /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

["BlindedByTheLite said:
ANY kid who would do something like that (and doesn't have a mental condition), wasn't taught well enough by his parents.. end of story!"]

It is not the end of the story, because it continues to happen. It should be clear that many parents do not teach the children properly, and also that parents cannot be with the children all the time.

Peer pressure is an important element in behavior, as is the general attitudes of society. Those attitudes are reflected in entertainment as well as other ways.

I agree that the parents are the most important element, but I have seen and personally known parents who made every effort to teach their children correct moral values. Yet the child went wrong because he was with the wrong people and watched the wrong things.

To say to turn off the particular program and to teach them correctly is good, but it may not be sufficient. The violence of movies, TV, and the constant situations of violence to solve problems does in some cases override the teachings of parents. Teens think that they are mature and know more than parents, and accordingly may ignore sound teachings. Sometimes they get counter teachings in public schools.

It is not always the fault of the parents.

Jerry

I apologize if I came across as trying to absolve the parents of any responsibility when it comes to raising their children with discipline and respect for others; I'm not. But I get angry when the purveyors of this cr*p repeatedly throw up their hands and say "it ain't my problem" while their bad examples continue to get worse and more outrageous each time.

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JerryM said:
The argument that everyone recognizes movies as fiction, and the same with video games and therefore will not suffer adverse affects from those things, is absolute nonsense.


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Here's a short biography of me:

1) I like video games in the shooting genre such as:
Battlefield 1942
Desert Combat
Rainbow Six

2) I am on a high school shooting team.

Just because I like violent games and have access to guns, doesn't mean that I will go out and commit a violent crime. I know that video games and movies are made up, fiction, not real, and who ever would do that stuff is stupid. People need to learn sometime, why not create a show where people do this without professional help? This way other stupid people thinking of this will see the gruesome side of the "stunts"?

One more example:
On September 11th 2001, hijackers flew 2 planes into the Twin Towers in New York City, flew one plane into the Pentagon, and another was presumably headed for Washington, DC. Millions of people watched this event unfold live. Did anyone try to fly a plane into a building after this happened? No, it is not videogames, movies, television or other media showing violence that is the problem. The people viewing the media is to blame.

The Violence on TV thing has been going on at least since I was a kid in the 50s. People have been saying esentially the same things over and over about it. Oddly enough, to a certain extent I think that they are all right.

I spent a lot of time in front of a TV when I was a kid and I remember folks complaining about the violence. In the early 90s I was thinking about what folks were saying about TV (the same things as before) and I wanted to see how TV had changed since the fifties. I began collecting pre-1960 episodic television. (how's that for wierd?)

I still do. I now have about 600 episodes of pre-60 TV and I can tell you it HAS changed in many ways. But like I said, everything ever complained about with TV was pretty much true. TV has almost always been just a little more violent, vulgar and risque than the society that produced it.

I think that the problem lies with the parents, as someone else said. That and the fact that families are less of a kids life today because more families fall apart. Likewise TV is more of a kids life, today.

Nothing too earthshaking from me, but I do love the old TV. I watch a few old eps once in a while and it is like travelling through time. I don't watch current TV at all.

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JOshooter said:
On September 11th 2001, hijackers flew 2 planes into the Twin Towers in New York City, flew one plane into the Pentagon, and another was presumably headed for Washington, DC. Millions of people watched this event unfold live. Did anyone try to fly a plane into a building after this happened?

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Not a plane, but others have tried to mimic stunts from tv -

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/1/30/95857.shtml

http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,8163,00.html?newsft

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/printer_friendly.asp?nid=13145

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2001/04/25/loc_mtv_show_gets_blame.html

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/95068_burn11.shtml

And at least one event can be traced back to Beavis and Butthead...

http://www.njsbf.com/njsbf/student/eagle/fall02-1.cfm

There is absolutely responsibility on the part of the parents to teach their children right from wrong and reality from fantasy. But some of these shows are constructed specifically to make it appear to the viewers that these stunts can really be pulled off in spite of their disclaimers.

MTV wags their collective fingers at the real-life copycats and says "yeah, you shoulda known better," but what p***es me off is that they pretend to have no culpability whatsoever for putting these ideas into kids heads, even when the evidence and confessions show otherwise.

I know people have tried to copy stunts from the television, I used September 11th because it was widely publicised, in the newspapers, on T.V., on the radio, etc. If people copy stunts from the lesser publicised shows, why haven't we seen some copies of this?

i dont think tv or video games can influence kids more then a good parent.

Actually a young teenager did fly a Cessna into an office building, was it in Florida? I believe they also found some documents stating that he sympathized with those idiots!

What about magicians then? they perform tricks with swords and slicing women in half and things like that. It's an illusion, yet you can see them do it. You'd have as much chance of blaming them for accidents when kids try to perform those stunts.

It seems unfair to me to put the blame for your own accidents on other people.

Having said that, I do dislike the kind of programs which show criminals performing their acts like police chases where innocent people get hurt. (unfortunately we have one tv station which has started showing the US series). We have a national version of it as well, but there the police follows bad drivers with a camera and afterwards they interview the driver a few months later to see what he has learned. No blood or injured people are shown.

I think children should be exposed to more violins. Classical music can be.....
Oh nevermind

I agree with you on certain situations, for example, the Super Bowl half time show, a show where most of America including young children were watching and widely expected to watch, was completely unacceptable and MTV should be held responsable for putting that kind of trash on a program where frankly nobody expected it so a parent couldn't possibly prepare for it. I didn't see them giving the Super Bowl a "mature" rating or anything like that, and would agree with you in that context.... the content of the show should match the show's rating of take into consideration the audience that is expected to view it.

I still remember how shocked I was when I saw that halftime show.. it's like their intention was to offend 80% of the people watching the super bowl and they were proud of their doing it. Either that or they've hung around with these types so long they actually think their behavior was normal.

has any one ever watched mtv recently one day i was watching it and they had some animnal show like croc hunter but thease morons well ya wouldnt belive me if i told ya. one of the guys from jack *** was on it very werid do you know back in the olden days mtv played music?no lieing realy did play music /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

unfortunately, there are always going to be those that will act out on what they see. Fortunately these individuals are in a very very small minority. You can link a dozen news articles and there are probably another dozen that you can't find. In my high school and grade school some people enjoyed trying to perform wrestling moves on other children, but nobody was ever hurt, even to the point of a bloody nose by any of it. It was sometimes humiliating though (and a bully can find any number of was to humiliate the other kids tv or no tv)

I'm not defending the crap on TV, but you can wish it or legislate it away. You can vote with your pocketbook by changing the channel. Or better yet write a letter to their advertisers and tell them that you think it's lousy that they are supporting such crap. But as long as the vast vast majority of people enjoy enjoy and are willing to watch the stuff without anything bad happening to them, it's going to continue.

Television is mob rule. Their whole reason for being is to get watchers so that their advertising is worth more money. They have found that appealing to the most people is the way to do this. There are millions watching these shows, and only a few dozen have problems. You won't get a public referendum passed on those numbers. The statistical correlation is not there. It's disgusting, it's rude, and it's not where we'd like our culture to be based. But that is not enough to sue or to get the government to do something about it.

If you want something to change, how about donating some money for education or doing some volunteer time at a local grade school. People that are educated and are interested in more of the bigger world spend a lot less time sitting at home watching TV. I'm not talking about a college degree, just a love of reading and a perspective that TV isn't the only thing to do with your time.

It's funny because the channels that air this stuff are all cable channels that you have to subscribe to and pay extra for.So parents are actually making a conscious choice to have them in their house.

So when are people going to start taking responsibility for their own actions and the actions of their children? When are they going to stop blaming everyone else because they are morons? It's Darwinism at it's finest... survival of the fittest. Shouldn't mess with the laws of nature. Let the morons weed themselves out... so the rest of us can get on with our lives.