Brain Scan Research

Indiana University conducted a study thats main focus was to show how media violence affects children. These brain scans show that brain activity in a teens brain that is highly exposed to media violence has reduced cognitive brain function. Media Violence stunts kids’ brain development. Violent TV, movies, and video games can all reduce the cognitive brain function.

The brains of violent people are different from the brains of non violent people. The brain of a child is not the miniature version of the brain of an adult, even though some other child organisms are miniature replicas of adults. A lack of proper stimulus can cause permanent damage to a child’s brain. In today’s world the proper kinds of stimulus are being replaced by to much time spent in from of a screen.

Children growing up as spectators, staring at two-dimensional images for four hours or more a day do not get enough physical movement, problem solving practice, or opportunities for language expression and skill building. In addition to replacing activities that can help lead to a healthy brain development, a fixation with violent on- screen images can have an effect on the brain’s alert system. Television and movie violence overstress children’s brains.

While violent images are keeping kids on alert, they just sit there. There is no way to release the energy building up inside of them. Unless the child can discuss feelings associated with those horrific images with an adult, those feelings have no where to go.

Media violence makes violent brains! Violent TV, movies, and video game exposure can have an effect on a normal child's brain. This can lead to the diagnosis of Aggressive Behavior Disorder. You can prevent this from happening to the people you are close to by…

Establishing a few rules and strive for consistency.

The average American child watches four hours of television everyday until they are eighteen. Starting to decrease the time that your child watches television will also decrease the chances of kids running into inappropriate content. Moderate viewers who watch one or two hours of television a day are more likely to have other areas of interests and be more successful in school. By reducing screen time including television, arcade video games, handheld video games and computers to one to two hours a day, you will start to see rapid results.

Build children's reading and language skills.

We have always been told that the best way to counter a negative is with a positive, so help your child to become great readers and writers. A well developed language system gives the brain a well-developed mental function. Children and teens with strong language and problem solving skills are more apt to be able to control themselves. Some researchers believe that literacy skills actually prevent violent behavior. This is not meant to say that smart, literate people do not commit crimes, but they do commit fewer.

Discuss the production techniques used to make

violence seem cool

Your children should know one basic thing as early as possible, and that is that all media is intentionally constructed for specific audience reactions. We do not mean for you to make your child watch violent acts on television, but when they do happen to see it, you can point out the production techniques that make is so appealing.

Examine sensational vs. sensitive portrayals of

screen violence

When kids interpret violent images the age and stage of development matters. If younger than 8, youngsters should not see any sensational violence– ever. As children become able to verbally express ideas they can learn to discuss, and understand portrayals of violence that can teach respect for life. Most children cannot reach that level of response when violence is portrayed as glamorous. With all of the violence available to our kids, the only normal reaction they can have is to think it is cool to kill someone.

It is important for parents to be aware of the differences between sensational violence and sensitive violence. There are characteristics for both that are easily detected. Sensational violence features lots of action, fast-paced filming, and tons of special effects. The killing looks like fun, the perpetrator has little or no remorse for what he has done, and in the end there are no consequences. You as a viewer walk away psyched up, thrilled, and feeling good.

Characters of sensitive portrayals of violence shouldn’t give you that high. Entertainment that is more slow moving, with more dialogue, to provoke thinking as well as feeling. Also there should be no need to show to much of it, it should upset you and allow you to show compassion for what you have seen. There should be no suggestion that the fighting and suffering is fun.

Deal directly with TV news programs

We can’t overlook the fact that overexposure to violence in news can lead to a child seeking it out as entertainment. Most of what the news programs show is the negative aspects of human behavior. Although the networks like to think that they are offering a good balance of the positive and the negative things that are happening around us, we all know that they are not. Letting children, especially young children watch the news on a regular basis can be harmful to their worldview.

Preschoolers are definitely not ready to watch the evening news, because the news programs offer to many displays of graphic violence that would be very difficult to explain to a young child. With children under eight, the parents might consider watching a later news program when the child is asleep. They can also tape the news program for viewing at a later time or just simply listen to the radio instead. By age eleven or twelve most kids have developed the necessary language and thinking skills to analyze news programs.

When they are watching these news programs, be around and answer questions. Ask questions, discuss the news, and help your kids put what they see into context. Younger teens and high school students can learn a lot from a news program if they know how to approach it.

Choose slower-paced quality entertainment for

your children

We need to slow down the pace of what our kids watch. We must select TV programs, videos, and video games that have a slower pace and require some thinking. In order to do this count the seconds between the image change. If each image changes every two to three seconds, the pace is to quick. With image changes that are long and vary in length, the children have time to digest that they are seeing and will most likely interact with what they watch.

By providing slower paced programs and videos for children, we are reducing their exposure to violence.

Refuse to buy or condone with violent video games

Giving video games to toddlers, preschoolers, and elementary school children must stop! Even if parents are introducing only non- violent games at this age, it is going to be much more difficult to the kids away from violent ones. Children do not need video games and in fact the earlier the children are introduced to video games, the more likely they will crave more violent ones when they become older.

Listen to your child

Listen to what your children are saying about violence! Here is a story that came from a concerned mother written by Beverly Jackson. “ I took my two-year-old son, Tim, on a field trip with his older brother, and he experienced an unexpected traumatic reminder. As we boarded the bus for the field trip, Tim went into hysterics. Because he was just beginning to talk, it was not easy to understand the nature of his terror. After calm coaxing he uttered the word “Kuger.”

The other children informed me that he thought the man across the aisle was Freddy Krueger… Although Tim had never seen a horror movie, he had seen television commercials advertising such movies. In addition, he had not seen or interacted with many White males in his short lifetime. Thus he generalized his fear of Freddy Krueger to this encounter.” These are warning signs, and they should be warning parents of what their children are all about. Kids are not great at hiding their emotions, so if your child is saying things about violence that make you pause, pick up on it.

Confront peer pressure

Where it comes to getting kids on the right track, peer pressure is where we stumble. Kids want to fit in so they do things like play a violent video game so they are not an outcast at school. What parents must do is teach them not to be in that kind of situation. Teach them not to care so much about what their friends think that it starts to control their tastes and what they want to do with their time. If we take a stand in our own home, children know to respect that.

The “Everyone else gets to watch it” or “everyone else plays those games” arguments can be countered by saying that in your home you do things a certain way. What parents need to focus on is not so much whether the child is missing out on so called “necessity” but rather on building the child’s sense of identity.

A Preschooler who watches about two hours of cartoons a day is

exposed to nearly ten thousand violent episodes a year.

Nearly 40% of all violent incidents on television are caused by

characters who possess qualities that make them attractive role

models to kids.

By eighteen year of age, a typical American child will have seen at least 200,000 dramatized acts of

violence and 40,000 screen murders.

Works Cited

Grossman, Dave, and Gloria Degaetano. Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill A Call to Action Against TV, Movie and Video Game Violence. New York: Crown, 1999. Print.