The question is not new, but the 1999 slaughter of 12 students by fellow Columbine High students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold has added necessity to the search for answers. The Littleton, Colorado teenagers reportedly immersed themselves in the same situation described above.

In many peoples' living rooms, there sits an outlet for violence that often goes unnoticed. It is the television. The children who view it are often pulled into its realistic world of violent scenes with sometimes disturbing results. Much effort has gone into showing why this glowing box, and the action that takes place within it, mesmerizes children. Research shows that it is definitely a major source of violent behavior in children. The statistics prove time and time again that violence and television viewing do go hand in hand. There are measures that can be taken to prevent the children from ever being exposed to such things. The

Research shows the truth about television violence and children. Some are trying to fight this problem, while others are ignoring it, hoping it will go away with the pizza boxes in yesterday’s trash. Still, others do not even seem to care. However, the facts are indisputable. The testing all point to one conclusion: television violence causes children to be violent, and the effects can be life-long.

The other side may say that effects on children’s actions are short-term, but there is strong evidence supporting quite the opposite. Studies done by the top television networks make obvious the long range effects excessive television watching has had on children, by citing how they behave as teenagers.

In addition, a study conducted, established how children become desensitized to violence. Divided into two groups were fifty girls and boys, all in either third or fourth grade. One group saw a violent action movie, and the other group did not see any movie. Afterwards, the children were asked to watch two younger children on a television. The two children on the television became increasingly violent toward each other, and this is where the experiment gets appealing. Researchers found the children who had seen the action movie waited longer to get an adult to help the two violent children, than did the children who had not seen a movie. This suggests that the children, who had been exposed to violent behavior, accepted the behavior they witnessed between the two children they were watching as normal.

The Social Learning theory is the main argument for the side arguing that violence on television leads to aggression in children. The social learning theory claims that children copy violent scenes from television, believing that this type of behavior is acceptable. All people are individuals; therefore, it is difficult to characterize behavior. Obviously not every child who watches "Pokemon" will act a

Some topics in this essay:
Albert Bandura, Littleton Colorado, Social Learning, Ball Z”, RD Singer, Medical School, Rob Zombie, , aggressive behavior, Dylan Klebold, violence television, behavior children, violent behavior, television children, television violence, children television, Duke Nukem, violent behavior children, children witnessed, violent scenes, act aggressively, aggressive behavior children, social learning theory,