Well, good thing TV Guide is a refereed journal!

Having filled out the complaint form over at Focus on the Dysfunctional Family, it was with great trepidation that we clicked on the submit button. Once. Twice. And then we ended up here:

focusonthewhore.JPG

Well we knew our complaint couldn’t be as serious as all those other issues, so we immediately clicked on What are the long-term consequences of violent and sexual television programming? It’s a good thing we did:

One of the most conclusive studies was conducted by Dr. Leonard D. Aaron. He examined a group of children at age 8 and then again at 19 and finally at 30. Children in the United States, Australia, Finland, Israel and Poland were studied. The outcome was the same; the more frequently the participants watched violent television at age 8, the more likely they were to be convicted of crimes by age 30, and the more aggressive was their behavior when drinking. (34)

We were a bit skeptical but then we checked out the footnote:

(34) TV Guide, 22-28 August 1992

And given that when it comes to such research TV Guide is the penultimate reference (right after the New England Journal of Entertainment Weekly,) we knew we needed no additional proof.

Then again, Focus on the Spelling’s point would have likely been more convincing if they had actually managed to spell the name of their source correctly: it’s Leonard Eron.

 

Comments: 8

 
 
Pastor Tobin Maker
 

Mussolini was notorious for his love of first-person-shooter Playstation 2 games. ‘Nuff said.

 
 

You’re just trying to discredit Focus on the Family because Rev. Dobson has video of you, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Barney engaged in hot man-on-sponge-on-dinosaur action.

 
 

I remember learning about studies involving children vs television voilence in university. The prof was very clear that a connection has NEVER been found.

He even discussed a study that sounds very much like the study quoted here. I may be wrong, but the actual conclusion of the study was that kids who already showed signs of violent behavious (ie bullying, aggressions, etc) were the ones more likely to be violent at age 30 after being exposed to violent television. The “normal”
kids, or those who were not violent before, were NOT more violent after watching violence on television, and in some cases seemed LESS so at age 30.

So there is also a good chance that they are misreading the study (or TV Guide is). Another study which gets misinterpreted had kids watching TV violence and then beating on one of those “Bop-it” inflatable dolls. This was originally taken to say “tv makes kids voilent”. What people eventually realized is the whole point of a Bop-it doll is to get hit and therefore kids hitting it had little to do with the TV and more to do with the purpose the toy was meant for.

 
 

Ahem, “Correlation is not causation.”

And all in unison, all my old college professors pat themselves on the back.

 
 

Hemlock’s point is important; what else is going on in the lives of children who watch violent TV? Are they unsupervised much of the time? Do they live in violent, dangerous surroundings? Who in their lives is modeling adult behavior, and what does that behavior look like? I don’t think it’s good for kids to watch violence, but I think there’s a lot more to the picture than that one factor.

S-N — What were you complaining about to Unfocused on the Fambly?

 
 

I don’t think it’s good for kids to watch violence, but I think there’s a lot more to the picture than that one factor.

Yeah! Like sex. My kids don’t need to know anything about that. When the time comes, I’ve taught them to undergo spontaneous fission.

 
 

S-N — What were you complaining about to Unfocused on the Fambly?

Their story about the whole German women forced into prostitution to keep their unemployment benefits crap.

 
 

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