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<title> The influence of violence </title>
Many parents are worried that television violence affects their children negatively, and indeed many researches show that this is true. Children are not able to see violence as being so dangerous as it really is. Especially the ages around seven years old are critical in the children's development. This is when their social behaviour is formed. Several questions have been discussed; do children that watch TV become more violent then the ones who do not? And if so - what can be done about it? Is it the media's or the society's fault that violence amongst teenagers in the U.S. has increased?
	Three major effects on children must be taken in consideration. One of these is of course the fact that children may become less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others. People for example in movies tend to tolerate more pain than people in real life, and this misunderstanding can be life threatening both for the children and others around them. Another effect is that children may be more afraid of the world around them. Children who watch a lot of television that contains violent acts see the world as a mean and dangerous place.
	The most serious effect however on children is of course that they may be more likely to behave in an aggressive way towards others. For example they can get into fights with their playmates and disobey authorities. They also have a higher level of aggressive behaviour when they become teenagers and later when they become adults. Children might try to imitate scenes from films and are not aware of the true effects of it - they think it is going to be just like in the film. And this is of course very dangerous.
	What can be done to prevent all this? One solution is to develop a rating system for television programmes that will give parents an indication of content not suitable for children. The V chip (i.e. antiviolence chip), which you install into your television set, will let parents supervise the quality of what their children watch and block out certain programmes that have a lot of violence. Solutions that require less, are for instance to sit down with the children and see what the programme is about and see to it that the children understand the content by explaining questionable incidents. Parents should also discuss alternatives to the violent actions as ways to solve problems. To limit the amount of time that the children spend on watching television can also be a solution.
	To pass legislation against violence in entertainment can be a possible way to deal with this situation. Negative voices claim that it is not right to let the government control this. We are ourselves responsible for it since there obviously is a demand for violence in entertainment. To legislate anti-violence controls is also violation of the basic freedoms of speech and press - it is against the U.S. constitution. And who is to decide what is offensive or dangerous and what is not? Such judgement should be up to each person and not decided by the government. The banning of violence on television must be optional.
	You can not put the entire blame for violence in our society on the media since media in a way reflects the ideals of society. Even before the invention of television, people were committing acts of violence. We should consider entertainment as what it is - entertainment, because it is market driven. Violence only sells in a violent society, and that is why society needs to be changed as well. Sensible optional alternatives should however be provided to lock out violence on television, but to legislate against all television violence is wrong - we should not rely on the government to solve this matter but on each individual to make his own choice and show his responsibility.
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