Every critical report of violence in the media trots out terrifying numbers about how many thousands of simulated acts of murders and mayhem a child witnesses during his formative years. Impression is laid upon impression, so that eventually any values of peace and compromise are crowded out by the maxim that might makes right. The next time the child witnesses a bully pushing around a smaller kid, he won't intervene. If someone challenges him, he'll put up his dukes. Over time, the fear is, the media will desensitize him to belligerence by others and disinhibit him from resorting to it himself.
Some kids spend great amounts of time in front of various screens.
It is understandable that parents worry that over time, this experience could turn their children into surly or hurtful people. However, science does not support this fear. One of the most ambitious and frequently cited longitudinal studies assessed groups of boys and girls ages 9 to 11 from the U.S., Finland, Poland, Australia, Israel and the Netherlands over six years in the 1970s and early '80s. This work, steered by research psychologists Leonard Eron and L. Rowell Huesmann, yielded much useful information about the relationships among such factors as parental punishment, socioeconomic status, intelligence, television viewing and aggression. But contrary to the American authors' claims, the study did not provide convincing evidence that watching more violent TV contributed to children's antisocial behavior over time and in different countries.