In Michele Landsberg's, "Violent shows train children how to murder," she stresses that violence in the media greatly affects children in a negative way. The author talks about David Grossman, a retired Lt. Col. in the army, who now talks to groups about children and violence. He mentions the case of Michael Carneal, a 14 year old who when on a killing rampage in Paducah, KY. He comments on the amazing accuracy of Carneal's shots and how he learnt to shoot off of a video game. The rest of the article continues on about how impressionable young children are and the negative affects of watching violent shows. .
I agree with the author's position on this topic. I like the way she took a serious approach to her article, since this is a very serious issue.
I agree with this essay in that at a young age, children are very impressionable. Showing them repeated violent television shows, movies, or video games has to desensitize them to the reality of violence. From the "Media and the Family" web site, I found a very scary statistic. It said that by the time an average child, who watches two to four hours of TV per day, finishes elementary school, they will have witnessed 8000 murders and over 100 000 other acts of violence on TV. I can just imagine the profound effect that this must have on kids.
In the case of Michael Carneal, he learnt how to shot accurately from a video game. How can anyone say that violent video games don't affect children?.
As the author says, children are almost "trained" in violence. From a young age, kids see acts of aggression and brutality on TV. Maybe not for all children, but for some, it changes their perspective on reality. Children are learning to react violently to a problem situation because that's what people do on TV. Also I think that some children don't realize the finality of violence. After witnessing 8000 murders on TV, it becomes a normal thing to them.
