Two general views:
1) TV, especially TV violence, desensitizes human beings, especially children, to real violence and real suffering.
2) Parental influence plays a greater role in molding our behavior than TV plays (even in households in which parents have abdicated their authority by letting their kids watch too many hours of TV).
In my own case, I think I was influenced by good behavior on TV but not influenced by bad behavior. I didn't take violence on TV -- whether it was cartoon violence or live-action violence -- seriously (i.e., as anything more than something mildly entertaining), but I seemed, perhaps instinctively, to respond very seriously to shows like Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, where I knew even at the age of 4 or 5 that people were behaving themselves and being kind and mannerly, and that this behavior was necessary in a civilized world.
What about books? Is reading dying, or being slowly replaced by TV and movies and video games?
Book reading may be making somewhat of a comeback in today's elementary schools. Resort hotels at Disney and elsewhere say kids often have books with them at the pool, inside the restaurants and on the trams to the park; and in school districts around here, kids are voluntarily reading books at night before bed more and more.
Of course, you still can't have a decent conversation with the little shits.
1 comment:
Hey, Clive, how am I supposed to argue with you when I agree with you? Still, I found something to yap about. What kind of books do the kids read at Disneyland or before beddy time? I'm concerned that they're not the caliber of the books we read. About TV, I think kids' access to cable gives them so much more opportunity for watching violence, sex and other negative influences that good parents must counter.
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