Television and other media have always been blamed about showcasing violence to a large extent. Many television shows are infamous for their violent content. Television violence is all about murders, bloodshed, explosions, disaster and deaths. TV shows often demonstrate hitting, stabbing, screaming, thus expressing negativity. This destruction shown on television lays a deep impact on its viewers, especially children. Television violence and children are closely related entities as children form a large portion of television audience.

It is a point of debate whether television reflects society or behavior of society reflects what is shown on television. But at some point it becomes a vicious circle. People follow what they see on TV and television shows revolve around what is prevalent is society. Television is bound to have a deep impact on the viewers, especially children. Children tend to blindly follow whatever they see. Television violence influences children to a great extent because they relate to characters on television.

Television violence affects children of different ages in different ways. The effect depends on their levels of understanding, their ways of processing information and their own experiences.

Television Violence and Children

• Infants perceive television shows as being displays of light and sound. They often miss the program content. They can make meaning only out of characters and faces familiar to them. It is said that if behavior on television is presented to them in simpler ways, they are likely to imitate it.
• When children reach an age of two and half years, they begin to pay more attention to what is shown on TV and tend to imitate it. At that age children prefer to watch fast moving characters and are likely to get exposed to television violence. During the pre-school age, children begin to derive meaning from what they see on television. Intense scenes and sounds attract them. Cartoon violence draws in the children of that age. It is seen that pre-schoolers behave aggressively after watching action and violence on TV.
• During their initial years of schooling, children begin to understand the television scenes. They are able to follow the actions of characters and the consequences of the characters’ actions. But they tend to think less on what they see, which results in their reactions of a superficial nature. If children identify with a villain, they may start enacting his behavior. They think of emulating that violent hero. There is also a likelihood of them becoming tolerant to the real world violence. Studies say that watching horror movies can be an attempt by children to get over their own phobias.
• When adolescent, the children start watching television independently. At that age, they can reason everything they see but they do not exert mentally in watching TV. Some adolescents continue to relate to violent heroes and believe in the reality of television. If they are exposed to suicides and crime they may try to imitate those kinds of behaviors.

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