TV
violence makes boys aggressive: study
Cartoon
violence may be causing young boys more harm than most parents imagine,
newly published research
reported this week by
AFP suggests.
According
to researchers at the Seattle Children’s Hospital Research
Institute,
the more preschool-age boys are exposed to television violence – and
violent
cartoons in particular – the more likely they are to act aggressively,
be
disobedient and get into trouble later in life.
What
parents do not realize, lead researcher Dr. Dimitri Christakis told AFP,
is that
“preschool children don’t distinguish between fantasy and reality the
way older
children and adults do. To them it’s all very real.”
“Precisely
because cartoon violence is intended to be funny and depicts violence
without
real consequence – even if people get blown up, they’re [blackened] for
a
second and then return to normal – it conveys the wrong messages about
the
effects of violence in the real world.”
The
increased chances of bad behaviour later in life did not show up in the
study
in either preschool girls who watched
violent TV shows
nor in children who watched non-violent or educational programs.
“The
take-home message to parents is that they have to be very mindful of
what their
children watch, and if they’re careful about it, there’s no harm in
selective
TV viewing,” Christakis said. “If they’re not, there really are risks
in terms
of children’s behaviour.”
The study is
published in the
scientific journal Pediatrics.
