A young man with a gunshot wound in a Boston hospital emergency room amazed the doctors. He was surprised that his wound actually hurt. In another case, a court judge asks a murder suspect why, after he killed the person, he poured salt in his victim's wounds. He replied, "It was something I saw on TV."" Watching violence on television influences society to act aggressively because of its vulgar content. .
American children watch an average of three to four hours of television daily. Whether it is a music video, cartoon or a televised sport, a large amount of the programming is violent in a way. Statistics show that children and adolescents in America spend, on average, 28 hours per week watching television. Unfortunately, much of televisions programming is violent. What's even more staggering is that it has been estimated by the American Academy of Pediatrics that by age 18, the average young person will have viewed an estimated 200,000 acts of violence on television alone. In fact, according to John P. Murray, Ph.D., Professor of Developmental Psychology and the former Associate Vice Provost for Research and Director of the School of Family Studies and Human Services at Kansas State University, about five violent acts are committed during one hour of "prime time" evening television programming, and 20 to 25 violent acts occur each hour on Saturday morning children's programs.
The reality is that children who watch a lot of TV are less aroused by violent scenes than are those who only watch a little; in other words, they're less bothered by violence in general, and less likely to see anything wrong with it. For example: in several studies, those who watched a violent program instead of a nonviolent one were slower to interfere or to call for help when, a little later, they saw younger children fighting or playing destructively. Psychologists say that there are three major negative affects television has on children.
