A recent nation-wide study by the Canadian Teachers Federation indicates that the majority of parents do not exert any control on what television shows and movies their kids watch or what video games they play. According to this study, by Grade 7 three-quarters of the kids surveyed had watched R-rated movies on video or DVD. One-quarter of these youngsters had actually rented R-rated movies themselves. Similar figures applied to the video games they play. By grade 7 amost 75 percent of the parents did not tell their children what games they could or could not play.
Other studies provide similarly alarming results. Recent surveys by organizations such as the US Federal Trade Commision indicate that a typical American child spends an average of more than 38 hours a week using these entertainment media. That’s a full working week for most adults. The FTC review indicates that the majority of research into the impact of media violence on children finds that there is a high correlation between exposure to media violence and aggressive and sometimes violent behavior. The Canadian Teacher’s Federation study confirms these results as it found that half the students in Grades 7 to 10 had witnessed peers imitate a violent scene from a movie or television show or copy a dangerous stunt.
Three points are obvious from the research; children are spending a huge proportion of their time using electronic media, the media are having negative effects on our children and parents are not monitoring and controlling what is being watched and played by their children. There are major implications to these conclusions. They range from developing a generation of more aggressive, violent and sexually active children to contributing to the growing problem of obesity in children by allowing their major leisure time activities to be sedentary ones.
Parents need to set controls on what their children watch and play and how long they are using these media. That means they have to know the content of the programs and movies their children watch and of the games they are playing, then refuse to allow any that they feel are inappropriate. It takes time and effort for parents to impose these controls but if they don’t it is becoming increasingly obvious that the impact on this generation of children may be disastrous.