Shayesteh, Jason, Sharon: Violence and Children

A high-school student killed nine other students in his class with a machine-gun. Later, he admitted that he killed his classmates just because they derided him, and he just killed them as Rambo killed those bad people in the movie “The First Blood”. This kind of news comes from the media again and again. Do the media know its role in increasing children violence? The media contributes to violent behavior of children in some ways.




The media affects children because it reflects the violence of society. The media amplifies the violence to attract the audience. For instance, when the media produces fantastic criminal episodes, children feel that will be “cool” and amazing. A victory is exciting in the war scenes and kids like to be a winner or a hero. In addition, the media provide children violent scenes of the world. For example, the violent cartoons are filled with aggressive action drawn the children. While the virtual hero of cartoons solves the problems with physical force, kids are fascinated by those violent stories. As a result they think they should have the experiences in their lives.

The media teaches children violence. It doesn’t matter how old children are. Scientists are warning the children’s viewing violence will cause violence. When they show the guns, children know about guns. Children cannot judge, and they don’t know which way is better and just swallow it. Kids like to be heroes who are in their minds; therefore, the media provides a lot of the models for children to imitate. In a study psychologists traced the children behavior for thirteen years. They found children who watch more violent TV shows will get more aggressive. Children learn the styles of speaking or behavior of figures in the TV shows. However, the influences of the roles on children are integrated including what they say and what they do.



To sum up, violence is so pervasive in our society and children learn to behave violently from media reflecting the violence of society. Our kids are surrounded by all kinds of media nowadays, and they are not able to avoid the impact of the media. The media shouldn’t make some kind of rating system such as the V-chip to block its violence? Parents also have the responsibility for educating their children how to choose the suitable programs, and how to recognize the reality.