Media & Children

"The increasing violence in the media is a cause for concern, but we cannot blame the media alone for polluting the young minds, with violence.

Given the nature of children, they tend to playback whatever they experience in this world. Based on these experiences they build their belief and value systems. This collective belief and value system constitutes the ""society"". This means whatever they see at these tender ages have an everlasting impact on them. The interaction between the individual and the society is very high, which implies that children reflect upon the environment in which they are brought up. Let us take sports for example, Cricket is a religion in India, Baseball is a religion in U.S.A , even after decades why is that ? It is because the beliefs of the elder people are being imparted into the tender minds, and they also tend to think in the same direction. The belief in the game has been passed on to future generations unconsciously, and this chain continues. Similarly we tend to pass on our beliefs and values from one generation to the other, so the future generations are nothing but the reflection of whatever we are today, but a little bit advanced than us. So whatever violence we see among children are nothing but an advanced version of whatever we were yesterday!

Does that mean media as not impact? Nope! Media also plays its role well! It also reflects on whatever is happenning around us. It provides a global picture of what is happenning around us. It helps us understand the unknown's and so on. So how come it can pollute the children? Well it just shows you what happened across the world, and the interpretation is left to us. So based on the individuals value system, the child can empathize/ignore/react to an atrocious act described by the media.

Moreover, the children, lookup at the elders as role models. Starting from the kind of food they eat, and habits they reflect upon the elders in the society. This means that they tend to eat whatever you eat, and watch whatever you watch etc,. So the choice of the children normally tend to be based on the people in the society they come in touch with. Take ourselves for example: We still have a couple of mannerisms or habits, which we cannot explain. Like playing with the key chains, watching T.V while lying on the sofa etc. Where did all those behaviours come to us? These behaviours were those of the elders around us, like our uncle/aunt etc., and we subconsciously modelled those behaviours. And we still display it!

Any act by itself is neither good or bad, it is the perceptions that make them so. Let us take a recent example: A couple of hostages were beheaded in Iraq. We as the socity emphathize and feel bad for the people who were killed. But the kidnappers did not think so,they thought that they were destined to do it. And think that what they did was right. Why this difference? It is because those people were brought up in a poverty stricken condition and literally grew up in the war stricken zone. These happennings around the kidnapper made an everlastingh mark on him, which changed his value system and beliefs. This caused him to perform the atrocious activity.

So what do we do to reduce this impending problem? The change has to happen from within from each one of us. We will have to shed our violence,and seek a harmonious world. We need to take responsibility for our actions and be conscious about what we do, because it can make an everlasting impact on the society we live in.

Now the burden of creating a peaceful society (world) rests on us. Let us join hands to make this world a better place!"