From: matus [matus@snet.net]
Sent: Wednesday, April 03, 2002 6:46 PM
To: matus@snet.net
Subject: MFD List - My comments on Recent study linking TV and Violence

Friday, March 29, 2002

A new report was on NPR today, published in the Journal Science "Excessive
TV-Watching During Adolescence May Lead to Violent Behavior in Adulthood"
from - http://www.sciam.com/news/032902/2.html

It has been well worn out that Violent Media causes violent acts. On NPR the
author of this paper re-iterated this fact that 'hundreds of studies have
confirmed this' and, as he says 'to disagree is to ignore the evidence' Yet
dissenters are there, primarily because if media violence caused excess
violence, then this nation ougt to be overrun by violent acts! Indeed,
violent acts are lower than ever and are continually decreasing in the US,
something that is typically attributed to the higher standards of living in
the US. Happy employed well fed people do not typically committ crimes. So
if violence on TV causes violent behavior, why did this paper (which was
adjusted for socio economic status and many other environmental factors)
show this correlation? Because, its obvious, there is a correlation between
sitting on your ass 2 hours a day and watching mind numbing dumbed down TV
and being a violent person, as violence is more often then not associated
with ignorance (lack of knowledge, not a lack of the ability to acquire
knowledge) And sitting on your ass 2 hours a day watching mind numbing TV is
associated (Id be willing to bet) with being ignorant. Did these researches
pay attention to WHAT was being watched? (NO) Were the more violent programs
in the 2 hour or more per night group linked with more violent behavior? If
watching survivor two hours a night had the same effect as Wrestling, and
when those people were compared to ones watching the nightly news, "who
wants to be a millionaire", or some other lame braned automon directed show
for two hours a night and the former were more violent and the latter not,
we might logically conclude that media violence causes aggressive violent
behavior. In fact, the researches didnt check this, and all they discovered
was that sitting around on your ass watching the unstimulating televisions
shows that permeate our Attention deficit disorder airwaves leads one to be
a more violent person, regardles of WHAT one watched. If you read books,
magazines, newspapers, go to school, acquire skills, etc. etc, you are less
likely to remain ignorant and less likely to committ violent acts later in
life.


In fact, violence is more associated to the direct observation of,
witnessing of, or being a victim of real violent acts.


See my archived articles


Real violence breeds violent acts, not fictional violence -
http://www.matus1976.com/mfdlist/mfdlist_realviolence_notfictional.htm

Surgeon general's youth-violence report backs media, experts say -
http://www.matus1976.com/mfdlist/mfdlist_mediaviolence_surggen_report.htm


If we are trying to solve a problem (that of violence) we should focussing
on the things that actually DO lead to violent behavior (child molestation,
for instance, or abusive alchoholic parents) instead of what we think (or
some HOPE) cause violence (TV shows, video games, and movies) simply because
they do not like them. It is more that a sedantary unstimulating life style
leads to violent behavior than that content of TV shows, its merely the fact
that peopel are sitting around watching that crap while not doing something
else that is stimulating.


This paper made no effort to distinguish between violent TV and non-violent
TV, so how can the author make the claim that violence on television causes
violent behavior, when the only logical conclusion that can be drawn from
this paper is that watching TV for 2 hours a day correlates to increased
violent behavior.


Even newscientists reports the same thing


http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992109


"The study confirms for adults what is accepted by many psychologists about
children: viewing a lot of violence increases the likelihood that the person
will behave that way."


The paper doesnt show that!!! Yet the title of the article is "TV viewing
linked to adult violence" Notice there is now mention of violent television
vs. non violent television. Yet there are lone voices of reason, a
psychologist at Bucknell University said "What may be going on is that
families high in TV viewing are also lower in moral and character
education." duh!


The above comments were emailed to Steve Milloy, the respectable author of
Junkscience.com, who writes of this study at
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,49049,00.html The obvious logical
objections above he seemed to skip over.



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