One of the early field-experiments in 1972 conducted by Stein and Friedrich for the Surgeon General’s project dealt with 97 preschool children with a programming of either antisocial, prosocial, or neutral television programs during a four-week viewing period. The results indicated that children who are judged to be somewhat aggressive in the beginning became increasingly more aggressive as a result of watching “Batman” and “Superman” cartoons. The children who had viewed the prosocial programming of “Mister Rogers Neighborhood” were less aggressive, more cooperative and more willing to share with other children. Young viewers all around the world are getting involved in these dangerous acts and the parents have come to believe that they try to act like their heroes seen on television. In Ontario, a five year-old boy set his house on fire, killing his younger sister. The boy’s mother blamed his actions on the MTV show, “Beavis and Butthead.” The show had featured a lead character chanting “fire is good.” In the Colorado shooting, two boys opened fire in their high school killing 12 students and one teacher during their three-hour raid, then killed themselves before the police could apprehend them. Many experts blame Hollywood movies for this shooting. Such a movie as “The Basketball Diaries,” where a student dreams of walking into his homeroom and shooting everyone. Then, Leonardo DiCaprio walked into the schoolroom and shot numerous students and teachers. In doing so, he became a role model that other teenagers desired to emulate. (McCain, 37) Dr. Arlette from The Children’s Broadcast Institute claims that a six year-old boy wearing a ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle’ costume stabbed a friend in the arm for not returning a borrowed toy. She also says that a three year-old boy picked up the family cat and swung it around his head like a turtle hero wielding a weapon. When his mother tried to intervene, the boy said “It’s just like Michelangelo, Mommy!” A young boy in Arkansas was asked why G.I. Joe was his favorite show. He responded, “Because it has a lot of fighting.” Touchstone Pictures had to reedit the movie “The Program” where the drunken football players test their nerve by lying end to end in the middle of the highway because several men tried to mimic them and were either killed or critically injured. These few of many incidents prove to us that society is obviously being influenced due to the violence featured on television. In the words of Senator Simon, “TV is a powerful sales medium, and too often what it sells is violence.”

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