The Influence of Television

By age sixteen, he had witnessed over two hundred thousand violent acts and had seen thirty three thousand murders. This boy did not live in a war torn country, or a crime filled slum. No, he lived in an average neighborhood, in an average household. He is the average American child, subjected to daily violence. The acts he saw were not on the street, but inside his own living room - thanks to the television.

Television - it’s a part of our everyday lives. Nearly every American family owns one, if not two, or three. And the amount of time we spend in front of the television is unbelievable. We know television can be crude, and the above example has proven it can be violent.. But how much does it really affect us?

We rarely think of the power of the media - partially because activities like watching tv are so mindless, requiring only the click of a remote and not much effort or thought on our part. But the truth is that when television speaks, our culture listens. Why else would companies pay three million for a thirty second Super Bowl commercial?

Whatever product the industry is pushing, they know how to deliver their sales pitches successfully. This is especially true in the world of advertising. Since last February, we’ve all seen around twenty thousand commercials, telling us to buy this.. Use this.. In pursuit of happiness, perfection, or success. The average person views around 400 advertisements daily - around forty million by the time you’ve reached age sixty. And one out of every eleven of these contains a direct message about beauty - a tactic usually aiming at women. But children aren’t exempt either – Saturday morning cartoons have about thirty three commercials per hour. 55 of the boys in these commercials are shown building or fixing objects, or fighting, while 77 of the girls in these commercials are shown talking, laughing, or watching others. Children are the victims of these statistics and these children are our future.

Kids watch an average of 25 - 30 hours of television weekly and 54 of us have televisions in our rooms. We’re now consuming this mass media - both television programming and commercials - at an alarming rate. In spite of these statistics we keep watching glued to our televisions hour after hour. The average American spends more time watching tv than doing anything else - with the exception of sleeping. By the time you graduate you will have spent more time zoning out in front of your television set than attending school. Seven years of your life occur in front of the screen.

And what exactly does this time consist of? One thing is certain - this time is far from wholesome. In a generation where Desperate Housewives tops the list of favored broadcast network series among preteens and Bart Simpson ranks as televisions number-two role model, we know that kids who tune in this regularly are putting themselves in some bad situations. Children who watch television often are receiving a constant dose of distorted reality. While America battles an obesity epidemic and commercials hawk high fat foods, the silver screen is filled with disproportionately buff and thin men and women. 69 of all female television characters are thin, and American girls are taking note - in a recent survey, 7 out of every 10 girls reported wanting to look like a tv character.

In addition to being unrealistic, television has become increasingly violent. By age 16, the average American child will have seen 200,000 acts of violence happening onscreen. Our countries television industry is the most violent in the world, yet it maintains a huge following, because this violence is glorified in the eyes of Hollywood - 63 of the Hollywood elite say so themselves.

It doesn’t stop with violence. 64 of all television dhows have sexual content. One in every four American children cites MTV as their channel of choice, and, not surprisingly, 44 say they change their channels when there’s a parent in the room.

It’s violent, excessive, distorted, crude. And its powerful. It’s our television industry, influencing us in ways we would never imagine, ways we would never give a second thought to. We created Hollywood and we know we can control what we view. But televisions influence is growing and if we fall prey to it, the remote control might really be controlling us.