Television is the best friend of modern people.

It is a matter of fact that television has

contributed to people’s quality life since television programs provide useful information and
entertainment in a short period of time. This is a huge advantage to contemporary people who lead a
very busy life because they even lack time to take a leisure. Along with the benefits, however,
television also brings side effects to society. Like the saying ‘watching television is taking black paint
to your third eye’, television programs blind people’s insight and morality. There are scientific and
historical examples which support the fact that people tend to absorb negative television contents
without critical thinking. Therefore, I strongly agree on the idea that television violence can promote
violence in real life.

First of all, violent television programs affect children in a negative way because they tend to
follow the behaviors shown in the media. If children are exposed to violence through televisions, they
can cause many social issues such as school violence and delinquency. Dr. Albert Bandura, a well-
known child psychologist in Stanford University, also warns about the danger of children’s early
exposure to violence through his study called Bobo Experience. In the experiment, children were
divided into two groups; the first group watched a short film of a character hugging a doll, and the
other group watched a film of the same character punching the doll. Then, the research team
introduced the doll to both groups as ‘your friend Bobo’. However, the children’s reaction towards the
doll was totally different. The first group of children hugged the doll, while the other group punched
and kicked the doll exactly as the character did in the film. This result shows that the contents of the
television directly affect children’s behavior. Therefore, if children continually watch violent
television shows, it is a matter of course that they can act violently in real life.

Next, television violence promotes negative mass belief which can bring reverberations in
society. Television program is a great medium to infect people with ideology of the provider. People
blindly trust information provided by well known television channels, and they really get to love or
hate the actors according to the characters they play in television series. The politicians are well-
aware of this mass psychology, so many dictators in history have used television programs to cause
hatred and division among people for their political benefits. For example, President Cheon, an
infamous Korean dictator in the 1980s, used a strategy called 3S which symbolizes screen, sports, and
sex. Through television programs, the dictatorial government put away people’s attention for politics
to sports and movies. Moreover, they maneuvered people to have negative thoughts about
Jeollanamdo province where pro-democracy movements were at the peak. Many comedies and
movies showed negative images about Jeollanamdo citizens through characters who is violent and
quick-tempered, and this resulted the other citizens to avoid them. Consequently, people thought it
was reasonable when the government gathered army to suppress the movements held in the province.
And the soldiers also thought that it was just to use harsh acts towards ‘violent people’, which brought
a tragedy of massive massacre . This shows that television programs can provoke violence in a social
range.

In conclusion, violence in television programs directly affects people, which results in

personal and social violence. Scientific research indicates that children follow the wrongdoings of the
characters in media. This can make children commit violence themselves, which can bring social
issues in schools and communities. Moreover, television programs can unnoticeably spread negative
ideologies about a social group. Historically, television has been abused by the dictatorship, and the
people who thoughtlessly absorbed the ideology in it carried out mass violence and hatred.
Consequently, the society must be censored about the contents of each program to provide guidance to
its young viewers as a whole.