Last Thursday we talked a lot about how the youth is affected by media in today's society. I believe that children are highly impacted by what they see and listen to, however parents also have a huge impact on how much media affects their children. The youth today has access to endless amounts of media. They can get on a computer and look up whatever they want, and flip on the TV and watch tons and tons of different programs and shows. I remember when I was a kid one of my favorite things to watch was Power Rangers. I wanted to be a power ranger so bad, and I remember acting like I was fighting this small blow up punching bag. So, clearly I was impacted by watching the power rangers, and wanted to fight something. However this is where parents come into play. I never once thought of going to school and fighting a kid or anything, because I was taught I could only be a power ranger if I was fighting the little blow up punching bag. So, that media did not negatively impact my life because of good teaching from my parents. However, there are some kids that watch something like that, and are never told that its not okay to go hit someone or fight them at school, so they carry what they see in Power Rangers over to their school and with their classmates. This is when the media negatively impacts children.
It is my belief that parents ultimately have the say in how much media impacts their children. Their children can see all the bad stuff in the world, but depending on how they are taught to view that media, correlates to how much it impacts them negatively. I do not think it comes down to parents putting up child blocks and all that kind of stuff, because kids ultimately will see the media anyway, and a lot of the time putting up child blocks makes kids pursue that media even more. I believe you need to teach them good morals to begin with, and teach them what is right and wrong, and then when they see media that is bad, they will understand. It will not be a perfect form of protection from bad media, because no matter what I think children are impacted, but its the best defense for it.
I completely agree with you Hayden. We are in the day and age now where censorship and parental blocks have really no affect on the youth of today. Yes, it may stop a child from viewing the media in question when he wants, be if he wants to see it that bad, that child will find a way to see it. It is also easier to see this "unwanted" media through other sources. Cutting to my point, I think it's vital that parent's teach their children good morals so that when they do see certain types of media in question, they know how to react to them.
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