Paranoid, some fear a fellow employee might crack under pressure and slaughter those around him. Yet violence in the workplace is extremely rare. Of about 121 million working people, about 1,000 are murdered on the job each year, a rate of just 1 in 114,000. The real danger does not arise from fellow employees but from thieves and robbers. When it comes to shocking violence, the television is always an easy target for blame.
History reveals that there has been no golden age for youth.
Glassner suggests that those who want to blame television for the increase in violence need to be consistent and commend it for the increase in kindness as well. If young Americans have seen tens of thousands of murders on TV, surely they have seen even more acts of kindness. Again, the real issue is ignored. TV shows do not kill or maim people. This is not to say that TV is blameless.