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<title> Why does anyone want to see a man get his head chopped off on television? </title>
A solution to the problem of violence on television being available even for very young viewers is presented in the Time Magazine article Locking out violence (July 24, 1995 Volume 146, No. 4) by Ginia Bellafante. The solution is called the V chip. It is a computer chip that can be installed in television sets to exclude programs with a certain level of violence. The V chip is supposed to help parents to control what their children watch on television when they are not home and still allow the parents to watch whatever programs they want. 

Personally, I would use the V chip myself in order to avoid all programs with an extraordinary amount of violence. I am not amused when there is blood all over the place, people still kicking a man when he is down and out just for the fun of it. This feature of coarse assaults in films occurs more and more often. Some kids watching programs and films with much violence might get inspired to copy their hero's behaviour. There have been a few incidents recent years that can be derived from action and thriller films. Kids shooting other kids they do not like at the moment or just shooting for the fun of shooting itself. Children obviously get very influenced by what they see on television, but I understand that it is difficult to know which programs are harmless for children and which are not.

It all seems to come down to the problem of where to draw the line. An invention like the V chip cannot, for example, tell the difference between Terminator 2 and Schindler's List. This results in the fact that parents delegate their parental responsibility to other people who then decides what their children should see on television. Some Disney films and other cartoons like Tom & Jerry are quite violent as well sometimes, so maybe some of those will be films for adults only too? I do not know what will happen, but I think that there will always be parents that do not want to buy the V chip. Then the other children, with the V chip at home, probably will come to that V chip free house and watch instead. 

Another interesting thing about the violence on television is how adults are influenced by it. It seems to me that people are so used to seeing fictional violence and terror on films that they do not get upset anymore when they turn on the news. On the other hand I think the news shows a little too much of what is going on out in the world. A camera close up on somebody's blown off head for a few seconds and then another close up in the mourning peoples faces the following seconds. Is that what the journalists call a follow up? There can of course be pictures in newspapers as well, that may be just on the edge of what is ethically correct. One and a half years ago I saw a picture in a Swedish newspaper of a happy looking man holding a stick in his hand with one of the enemy's head on top. It was the most awful thing I have ever seen and I was obviously very affected by it. Perhaps there are other people like me who still get very upset by the horror shown on the news or in the papers, but I think the amount violence shown in films and on television has made a lot of people indifferent to it. 

In conclusion I can only say that the question of where to draw the line is a difficult one and there is a lot of things that need to be considered to get a good solution. However I believe that the V chip is an adequate solution until somebody comes up with something better. Something must be done soon, before things really get out of hand, even if it is not the perfect solution everybody is looking for.
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