Shumryia Neal
Social Psychology
Agression/TV Violence
Prof. Zaleski
6/26/14

Television has its good side. It can be entertaining and educational, and can open up new worlds for kids, giving them a chance to travel the globe, learn about different cultures, and gain exposure to ideas that may never encounter in their own community. Shows with a prosocial message can have a positive effect on kids’ behavior; programs with positive role models can influence viewers to make positive lifestyle changes. However, the reverse can also be true: kids are likely to learn things from TV that parents don’t want them to learn. TV can affect kids’ health, behavior and family life in negative ways.
The Amount of Violence on Television According to the renowned psychiatrist Karl Menninger, "We not only tolerate violence it is part of our life. Why over one third of our television programs use it for amusement. There are more than 200 million television sets in America. The average American watches over seven hours a day. For many children, this is more time than they spend in school. The world of television has been alternatively called entertainment and a vast wasteland. It serves as a model of the world around us. What kind of world does it depict? The message is often one of violence. In 1973, the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania, devised a "violence profile" to measure the amount of violence shown on television. The analysts watched over 33 hours of entertainment programs in a sample week and monitored specific acts of violence. The results indicated that some violence was contained in 70 percent of the programs! The violence could be categorized into three types:

- Violence for its own sake - Overtly graphic views of brutality and human suffering - The portrayal of anti-social behavior

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