more mature audience, not young children. The amount of aggression increases with the average age of the audience. Barney geared at the youngest audience had zero aggression, whereas the Simpsons geared at adults, had countless acts. The Simpsons acts of verbal and physical aggression were about equal with each other. In the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the acts of verbal aggression were lower than the physical aggression. I feel that these numbers are pretty accurate with the popular beliefs on childrens programs today. Parents feel safer with a PBS program that is educational than anything does that is on during prime time on a big networks nowadays, and with good reason. Being that the aggression take place in cartoons, it was very much fantasy. Cartoon characters can suffer many violent accidents without a scrape, yet we all know thats not the same for a human. Characters were either cheered on or got many laughs out of the violence they inflicted. Children may not only learn violence from these programs, but they may also learn to think that there are not consequences for their actions. They may think they can violate one another without being punished, or without inflicted any pain, because cartoons do not suffer realistically. I would want to place some limitations upon my own childrens television viewing. I would base these rules on the age and the maturity of my child. If my child were at a young and influential age I would not really want him viewing any adult programs such as the Simpsons. I feel that as a parent it is also important to place time restrictions on a child to ensure that they are not watching too much television These time restrictions may include the hours a child can watch, and until what time are appropriate programs on. I would also want to take the time out to see what exactly my children were watching, so I could judge for myself. The television should not be the only influence a child ha...
