If television represents 14 percent of a child’s life, we would hope its conditioning would be positive, but the sad fact is that it’s not. Young people look to role models to help figure out their feelings and how to behave. The amount of television children watch, coupled with the cumulative effect of what they see, influences their perceptions and beliefs. Many children cannot discriminate between what they see on television and what is real. If senseless acts of violence and stereotypes of race are the facts children are conditioned to see as real, then our society is in trouble.
One of the most prominent and proven conditioning effects of television is the idea that violence is the answer, that violence is funny and normal. This message couldn’t be further from the truth, but children get conditioned to believe this as young as age six. Studies have shown a correlation between amount and content of television watched and aggressive behavior in schools, homes, and on the street. Young children imitate what they see on the screen, particularly if the behavior is performed by an attractive role model and is either rewarded or goes unpunished. The problem is that the entertainment industry does not want to admit the connection between violence on screen and violence in the world any more than the tobacco industry will acknowledge the cause and effect relationship between cigarette smoking and lung cancer.
There is another relationship between sexual acts seen onscreen and promiscuity during adolescence. Children get the message that one must have sex to feel loved and to fit in. In a study of 391 junior high students, those who selectively viewed more sexual content on television were more likely to have begun having intercourse in the preceding year. Television also fails to give the message that not using birth control results in pregnancy. Teenagers think that if their favorite soap opera character doesn’t use birth control, they won’t have to either. These beliefs begin at an early stage of life, where children find out what sex is from an age that is growing younger as the years go on.
The television industry likes to think of children as consumers. They teach basic capitalist theory to young eight year olds, inundate them with the idea of buying to get satisfaction, the idea that if they convince their parents to buy them the colorful Easy Bake Oven, their lives will be complete. The media conditions us to believe in these values at a young age, which is one of the reasons why our country is the most commercialized. We succumb to the happy smiling people, convinced that they are the people we all should aspire to be.
Another effect of these commercials is the growing waist sizes of American children. Half of advertisements in the time children view television are for high fat, high sugar processed foods, mainly breakfast cereal. They convince Mom to buy the Sugar Flakes and thus nutrition suffers. We usually don’t see commercials promoting the wonders of oranges and broccoli. Advertisements are more likely to associate food products with happiness and fun than with taste, nutritional content, and other features of the product itself. Such advertising is surprisingly effective. Young children have the fewest cognitive defenses against television advertising, thus not understanding the selling intent of the messages.
The solution to stop this disheartening trend among America’s youth lies in positive conditioning. Because children are so susceptible to the negative conditioning television brings, we should remove this box that is fouling up children’s minds from our homes. Positive conditioning from real people who care can take its place. Besides, who really wants to live in a place where the measure of one’s happiness turns on whether or not we get the product advertised on television, and the idea of solving one’s problems is to pick up the nine millimeter gun in Dad’s drawer.
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Sources:
American Academy of Pediatrics “Children, adolescents, and television.” Pediatrics, Oct 1995
Kist, Jay “Does TV affect your psyche?” Current Health, Dec 1996.
Strasburger, Victor C. “Children, adolescents, and the media: Issues and solutions.” Pediatrics, Jan. 1999.
Strasburger, Victor C. “Sex, teens, and the media.” Contemporary Pediatrics, Jan 1996
Taras, Howard, “Advertised foods on children’s television.” Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, June 1995.
