Who would of thought that something as innocent as watching cartoons every Saturday morning as a 4 year old would affect someone’s life so much. The countless hours wasted sitting in front of a grainy 13 inch television with bad antennae signal. Adjusting the antennae is a game of its own angling it precisely just to get a good enough picture. Sitting on the floor with your favorite bowl of cereal with the box right next to you ready to reload during the commercial breaks. Studies have found that watching television at a young age even family friendly programming could be the key factor that triggers the thought of committing crime into the brain of a young child that makes the child a violent adult.
As a child watching television doesn’t trigger questions like how will this affect me as I grow up? Nor do the parents when they turn on the TV for their irate child to keep them quiet. The television plays the role of the parent when they need time for themselves or just need a breather to get their mind straightened out. Little did they know is that they could potentially be creating a monster. Sort of like a butterfly effect. The idea of a butterfly flapping it’s wings in California could cause a Tsunami in Japan.(Too Soon.) In this case the butterfly is a child and Japan is the ex-girlfriend murdered when the child is an adult.
Television seems to babysit young children at times. If you put on programming that the child likes you could keep them entertained, distracted, or engaged for hours. This is when the child is most vulnerable because the child has lost focus on things around them. While this child eyes are glued to the tube they are missing out on physical activities like playing outside or participating in team sports, family interaction or bonding, playing with friends, getting fresh air, doing homework, reading books or doing chores. For example playing on a team sports team could build self esteem, teach a children how to play with others avoiding social issues and keep them physically active which could prevent health issues later on.
Now a day’s television played such a large role in children lives that there is programming aimed at infants. Some researchers recommend to avoid letting children before the age of two watch TV at all. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics “These early years are crucial in a child's development. … Pediatricians strongly oppose targeted programming, especially when it's used to market toys, games, dolls, unhealthy food and other products to toddlers.” (qtd. U-M Health) Advertisement on television even at a young age could play a part for children because what they see in commercials gives them the idea that they have to have it. Imagine wanting an expensive toy car that you see on TV as a kid and you beg your parents for it and never get it maybe in your mind it triggered something in your brain that says I must to have it. May not look much now and maybe as a kid you never act on it but many years later it pops up back in your head as an adult and you end up stealing a real car because this toy you never received as a child pops up in your head.
According to research done by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner in the book Superfreakonomics TV became available in the US in the mid 1940’s. Due to a interruption by the FCC some cities didn’t receive TV signal up to a decade later. Prior to TV the cities that got TV early and the cities that got TV later had similar violent crime rates but by the 1970’s, violent crime became two times higher in the cities that received TV earlier than the cities that received it later. Levitt and Dubner proved by comparing statistics from the years in between that the exposure of television had an effect in those cities separated from TV between the years of 1948 to 1952.
One of the more popular shows in early TV history was “The Andy Griffith Show”. The Main character was a sheriff that didn’t carry a gun and clumsy deputy. According to Levitt and Dubner maybe a criminal in the making watching this show believed that the police were weak and dumb and weren’t someone to be afraid of or respected. Looking at TV now police are portrayed in many different ways on a show like Law and Order or CSI they make cops look bad ass that they run the city and don’t take no for an answer but a show that’s been running for a long time like COPS shows police in real life situations out in the field doing what police are known for stopping crime. Maybe a person who has been on the other side of that television and been arrested for possession of drugs sees that, Snaps and decides to commit a crime. You never know maybe these shows are aired on television re-runs to tempt a criminal to go out and commit violent crimes to fill up these cluttered prisons. This whole thing could be a conspiracy.
Television has such a large a effect on lives of people that a murder was blamed on people. Kitty Genovese a 28 year old woman in 1964 was murdered in Kew Gardens, Queens, NY as 38 neighbors watched. Kitty was walking to her apartment late night from work when she was stabbed by a man. Neighbors heard screams from their windows but know one reacted to her thinking it was maybe a couple fighting neighbors ignored it and didn’t call the police the first time the criminal attacked. The criminal returned again to the victim than sexually assaulted her and robbed her for her money. The whole attack took over 30 minutes and no one called the police because they figured one of the other neighbors probably called already. One tenant from the article I read said “"We thought it was a lover's quarrel!" The neighbors were so brain washed by a situation they probably seen on often in a soap opera that they didn’t react like it was a crime.
It’s no secret that children are more likely to commit violent crimes because of watching a lot TV when they are young the sad part is that if the numbers were high TV were in its early stages, imagine now with the advancement in technology and the access to any type of media remotely from your computer to your mobile phones. At this rate the numbers will be too large to handle. The prisons are already too full as it is. Is crime going to be over looked in the future. Most cities have has large budget cuts to their law enforcement. These statistics are not looking good for anyone.
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