REFLECTION on “THE POWER OF SOCIAL MODELING: THE EFFECTS OF TELEVISION VIOLENCE”

Many television programs involve a substantial amount of violence in one form or another that affects people to think that television is the cause of violence in today’s youth. Many have questioned whether television disturbs the minds of adolescent children who cannot yet comprehend the truth of fiction and reality. Violent television viewing affects younger children more since their perception of what is real or unreal is not as mature as an older adult - meaning that aggressive adults learned their behavior as children. By watching portrayals of violence, children learn to accept aggressive behavior by becoming insensitive to the effects of violence and imitating it by modeling the actor’s aggressive behaviors.

According to the Institute for the Social Research, an aggressive behavior is a learned behavior which is being taught to our children by the media violence that they are exposed to daily (Chen, 1994 p.23). In Aggression – A Social Learning Analysis, written by Albert Bandura, indicates that sometimes watching a single violent program can increase aggressiveness. Children who watch television depicting violence as realistic, unpunished, and frequently repeated are more likely to imitate what they see (Bandura) Extensive viewing of television violence by children causes greater aggressiveness. Children with emotional, behavioral, learning or impulse control problems may be more easily influenced by TV violence. The impact of TV violence may be immediately evident in the child's behavior or may surface years later. Young people can even be affected when the family atmosphere shows no tendency toward violence.

While TV violence is not the only cause of aggressive or violent behavior, it is clearly a significant factor. Parents can protect children from excessive TV violence according to (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2012) in the following ways:

• pay attention to the programs their children are watching and watch some with them

• set limits on the amount of time they spend with the television; consider removing the TV set from the child's bedroom

• point out that although the actor has not actually been hurt or killed such violence in real life results in pain or death

• refuse to let the children see shows known to be violent, and change the channel or turn off the TV set when offensive material comes on, with an explanation of what is wrong with the program

 • disapprove of the violent episodes in front of the children, stressing the belief that such behavior is not the best way to resolve a problem

 • to offset peer pressure among friends and classmates, contact other parents and agree to enforce similar rules about the length of time and type of program the children may watch.

Parents can also use these measures to prevent harmful effects from television in other areas such as racial or sexual stereotyping. The amount of time children watch TV, regardless of content, should be moderated because it decreases time spent on more beneficial activities such as reading, playing with friends, and developing hobbies.

            The most important aspect of violence in television is preventing it. There are many ways in which it can be prevented, but not often are many carried out. These solutions are easy to implement, but are often overlooked because of commercial purposes.
            Perhaps the most important way to prevent children from watching television violence is to stop it where it starts. Children are said to be the hope of one’s nation. Children should be nurtured and mold properly by the parents or the responsible adults.The parents should step in and turn the set off when a violent program comes on. The parents are the child's role models from which he learns. Children were said to be great imitators, if the children live in the environment where there is love the children will also grow to love and respect one another. But if the child lives in a home where parents are always fighting the child also learn to be violent when he grows up. These children who are exposed to violent programs in television will learn to have vices and even get involved in crimes at their young age. That is why nowadays as we observe there are more minors were being sent to jail or to the DSWD for custody. If a child can learn at an early age that violence on television is bad, then he can turn the set off for himself when he is older. Education should start at home. There should be a proper guidance from the parents, most especially in choosing the programs to watch in television. Fixing the problems of children and television violence isn't easy. There are many factors that have to be considered and people to be convinced. This problem will, no doubt, never go away and continue to get worse as the years go by. However, there are measures that can be taken to prevent the children from ever being exposed to such things. After all, what's the world going to be like when the children now are running the world in the future?