Effects Of Children On Adult Issues - 1913 Words

For many years, it has been controversially debated whether or not exposing children to adult issues will have a detrimental effect on their developmental health due to their lack of maturity and lack of real world experience. While some believe that children exposed to these issues at an early age will grow up to live normal healthy lives that idea is not commonly accepted. In order to protect children from adult issues such as violence, children have become what is known as an protected audience. What children are protected from varies from one area to another. In some countries, young children are protected from media that displays violence while in other countries these images are more socially acceptable and as a result children†¦show more content†¦Since the very founding of the United States, American culture has been full of violence. For example, when Christopher Columbus found the United States it was already being inhabited by Native Americans. With the help of h is men, Columbus enslaved and killed many of the inhabitants. Within 60 years of his landing only a couple hundred of the original 250,000 Taino Native Americans remained. These acts of brutal violence carried on into the Salem witch trials and slavery. During the times of slavery many African Americans were raped, maimed, and lynched. These lynchings were often made into public spectacles and many times children were in attendance. Although society no longer deems it acceptable to commit such heinous acts publically, children in modern day are still being exposed to violence regularly. With the advancement of technology children have greater access to violent media than ever before. In 1950, only 10% of American households had a television this value has exponentially grown to 99% in 2015. Many children have a television in their bedroom this contributes to children watching programs without parental supervision. The problem with children watching television unsupervised is that t he content of the television program is not being monitored by an adult. Televisions programs display roughly 800 acts of violence an hour and children programs, especially cartoons, display up to 20 acts of violence an hour.3 Television