Courtesy of my lovely sponsor Nina…
Kasia May 28th, 2007
My favorite Scandinavian sent me this the other day. I’ll be adding it to the links on the right-hand side, but wanted to highlight it before doing so. It’s Teresa Tomeo’s blog Noise. For any of you who don’t know, Teresa Tomeo is a Detroit Catholic radio personality – she’s on Ave Maria radio – and is very active in the Archdiocese of Detroit’s annual women’s conference, among other things. She’s a neat lady.
The top post as of now is about a recent study, commissioned by several major media corporations, apparently downplaying the link between violence on TV and violent behavior in children. (Ms. Tomeo didn’t link to the study, so I can’t say definitively what they said…when I have some time I’ll try to dig it up.)
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that there’s some truth to the social science mantra that correlation does not equal causation. I mean, if you accept that correlation equals causation, you’re opening yourself up for some big problems. However, I think anyone who’s been around children knows that there’s a big ‘monkey see, monkey do’ element to children’s behavior. They tend to mimic what they see.
I realize that’s not a rigid scientific statement – it’s based on experiential and anecdotal evidence – but it’s a generalization I’m going to go with for right now. For one thing, this is a blog, not a scientific journal. For another thing, if anyone wants to challenge the statement, they are free to post in the combox, right after they go work with a crew of three-to-eight-year-olds for a week or so.
Anyway. I will accept that one may not be able to prove a direct causal link between TV violence and violent behavior, at least not with available tools. That’s one of the annoying things about social sciences; they try to measure, quantify and define elements that ultimately defy perfect measurement, quantification and definition. There are always alternative explanations. There are always other potential factors. And it’s very rare that only one variable X does singlehandedly cause a single effect Y. So it’s entirely possible – even probable – that there are other factors at play here. BUT, and here’s my big beef with using ‘correlation is not causation’ as your battle cry, diminishing what appears to be a strong correlation over decades of research turns what should be a simple research axiom into the proverbial last refuge of scoundrels. Can’t disprove the evidence that’s come up so far? Just keep reminding us that ‘correlation is not causation’. Eventually we’ll all be so tired of hearing it, and of trying to come up with indisputable proof of a direct causal link, that we’ll just concede the point out of fatigue and disgust. At least, that’s the strategy I think they’re taking. I just hope it doesn’t work.
I think that what children see in real life, on TV, in movies or in other forms of media exposure at the minimum desensitizes children to what that subject whether it is violence or nudity or poverty or whatever. A child exposed to violence will eventually not recoil at it. I want my children to recoil at violence. I want them shocked at nudity. I want them to react negetively to evidence or poverty or starvation. i don’t want them thinking this is normal, even if there is no proof that thinking it is normal leads them to behave that way themselves.
And no, obviously, anyone who honestly thinks there is no correlation between children watching violence and children acting violent has never watched boys get up immediately after watching a slug-fest in a movie and act out the same scene.
KIDS MIMIC WHAT THEY SEE. Period.
They say what they hear, they do what they see. That’s how they learn. Ask any parent about their two-year-old “parrots.”
The more they see it, the more they do it.
This study sounds like it belongs in the “Water is wet” files, but I’ve been told more than once that common sense ain’t.