Television And Violence Impact On Teens

TELEVISION AND VIOLENCE: IMPACT ON TEENS


Adolescence is the stage of life between 10 and 19 years old, during this period of life there are a lot of physical, psychological and social factorsthat help them to the integration on the society, and a very small group of them hostile and violent behaviors adopted manifested in several ways that concern society. At the same time, they areexposed of violence from society, their parents, other adults and another teens too.
These undesirable behaviors have several causes: the violence of the environment (neighborhood, community) in which theylive and develop as children, the family violence (psychological, physical, sexual) suffering from an early age and exposition to the mass media and especially television, which offers many forms ofpsychological, physical, sexual, self-inflicted or against third and their properties.
¨ Many children spend an average of 3-4 hours per day watching television. Television can be a powerfulinfluence in developing the system of values, character formation and behavior. Unfortunately many of the television programs contain a high degree of violence. The child and adolescent psychiatrists whohave studied the effects of television violence have found that they can:

- Imitate the violence they see on television,
- Identify with certain types, characters, victims and / or victimizers
-Become insensitive to the horror of violence
- Gradually accept violence as a way to solve problems.

So extensive exposure to television programs containing violence causes greater aggressiveness inchildren. Sometimes just watching a violent program can increase aggressiveness. Children who watch shows in which violence is presented in a very realistic, repeated, or unpunished, are more likelyto imitate what they see. The impact of violence on television may be reflected in the child's behavior immediately or develop later in their development. Teens may be affected even if the family...