It is a shocking figure made even more disturbing when we consider that this figure of 6.32 hours constitutes around 40 percent of our children’s waking time. After sleep, (if they sleep well) media is the second-highest, time-consuming activity engaged in by our children, even beating the time they spend at school and the time they spend with parents or friends. This is a worrying reality and one that we should act upon. According to the American Psychological Association, ‘an average 12-year-old has seen 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence on network television’ and this does not go unregistered in young minds. What is happening here is exactly the opposite of the general rule ‘out of sight, out of mind’ – ‘always in sight, always in mind?’[ii][ii]

-Aggressive behavior;
-Desensitization to violence;
-Fear;
-Depression;
-Nightmares and;
-Sleep disturbances.[i][iii]

We are not talking about a common cold or cough here. These are serious medical conditions, which affect the daily lives of our children. The United States Surgeon General Office, on the issue, has ‘responded by placing the TV violence controversy in the same context as the smoking and lung cancer controversy – a public health context.’[ii][iv]

What would you do if your child were to be given lessons in the ‘Art of Violence’ to learn how to plan, organize and execute a violent act? Would you:  

-Think, it’s OK, and forget about it;
-Discipline your child;
-Talk to the teacher;
-Call the appropriate authorities to complain, or;
-Continue to pay for lessons.  

You certainly wouldn’t consciously pick the last option would you? But you are choosing this option when you continue to allow your children to watch inappropriate content on television and multimedia.

 a. Television and Cable

In the United States, 105.44 million households have a television (as of Jul. 2002), an estimated 96.7 percent or 98.6 million household are linked to cable (Dec. 2001) and 73.55 million households pay for cable television (as of Jul. 2002).[i][v]  

The National Television Violence Study evaluated almost 10,000 hours of broadcast programming from 1995 through 1997 and found that 61 percent of the programming portrayed interpersonal violence, much of it in an entertaining or glamorized manner. The highest proportion of violence was found in shows aimed at children.[ii][vi]

By paying for the cable, which shows our children this violence, we are choosing the last of the above options.

b. Computer and Videogames

Around 59 million children – 92 percent of all children between two and 17 years old – play video/Internet games according to the national survey by the National Institute on Media and the Family (Dec. 13, 2001).[iii][vii]

The Sixth Annual Video and Computer Game Report Card (2001) states that, while the number of high-quality games for children increases, the concern about youth access to inappropriate games also continues to grow. For the first time in several years, it is likely that both the top-selling videogame and the top-selling computer game will carry the M (Mature) rating. Metal Gear Solid 2 (Playstation2) and Return to Castle Wolfenstein (computer) are both on track to be the market leaders.

We are paying dearly for these videogame consoles and CDs.

c. Movies

According to the CMPA’s 1998-99 report, moviegoers who had attended 50 of the top-grossing (most successful) theatrical films released in 1998 would have viewed a total of 2,319 violent incidents, about three-fifths (1,377) of which constituted serious acts of violence. This averages 46 violent acts per film, 28 of them serious. Again, it is parents who pay their children to visit the movies and witness these scenes. 

The truth is undeniable: parents pay for and support multimedia. They pay for the very same media that encourages violent thinking in young and vulnerable minds, and they continue to pay as children are inundated with its content. Worse still, they probably started it all by allowing their children to sit in front of the ‘idiot box’, as TV is sometimes known, when they were toddlers. By encouraging this ‘electronic babysitter’, parents stamped their approval to the process of multimedia watching.  

Just because in our day we didn’t become violent as a result of exposure to this medium doesn’t mean that our children are safe. The look and feel of today’s multimedia has radically changed over the last 20 or 30 years. We’re not talking black and white images or computerized ping-pong game anymore, today’s multimedia is lifelike virtual reality, in which children can often feel as close to its virtual characters as they do to real human relationships.  

Unfortunately, the answer to this problem is not as simple as just hiding the remote, selling the game box, switching off the computer or to stop going to the movies. Our world is more complicated than this.

The problem lies with:

1. Our acceptance of media glorifying, glamorizing and trivializing violence;
2. Our support of such media content;