TV violence is at the top of a slippery slope that can lead, in the most extreme situation, to slaughters like the Holocaust.
That’s the view of Madeline Levine, a Kentfield psychologist and author of “Viewing Violence: How Media Violence Affects Your Child’s and Adolescent’s Development.”
TV violence “desensitizes you to other people’s humanity,” said Levine, who was at Book Passage in Corte Madera recently during a national book tour.
Children who watch a lot of violence on TV are more aggressive, fearful and pessimistic than those who don’t, said the author. They are less kind and sensitive, she added, and kids who become desensitized to violence are less likely to help others get out of violent situations.
“A society that becomes increasingly desensitized to the real tragedy of violence…becomes increasingly capable of committing violence,” said Levine, noting that homicide is a leading cause of death for young people.
“TV violence…desensitizes you to other people’s humanity,” said Levine, a psychologist. The Holocaust shows what can happen when a society loses its aversion to violence, she said.
Yet parental and community involvement can be antidotes to the effects of TV violence, Levine said. She cited an Israeli study showing that kibbutz children who watched violent shows did not suffer ill effects.
The difference was that kibbutz children watch TV in groups, with other kids or adults present. In addition, the kibbutz children’s peer groups put a high value on cooperative behavior; the aggressive kids are the unpopular ones, she said.
The single most important thing parents can do to immunize their kids against violence is to watch with them, Levine said. The presence of other observers, especially adults, discourages children from imitating what they see.
Family involvement with communal institutions can also counteract the negative effects of TV violence, Levine said.
Parents can help protect children from the effects of TV violence by getting kids involved in “a community which doesn’t sanction aggressive behavior,” she said, and where “the value of the society is a more humane one.”
She cited her synagogue, Congregation Rodef Sholom in San Rafael, as an example of such a community, noting that Rabbi Michael Barenbaum insists that families perform tzedakah (charitable actions).
Of the hundreds of studies on media violence that Levine examined, none analyzed whether Jewish children are more or less affected by TV violence than non-Jewish kids. Since poor families watch more TV than middle-class families, and since Jewish families are largely middle-class, it’s possible that Jewish children suffer less exposure to TV violence, she said.
However, Jewish schoolchildren are not immune from the effects of the violence they see, Levine noted. In the 1980s, while working as a child development consultant to the Brandeis Hillel Day Schools in San Rafael and San Francisco, and to the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, she noticed an increase in aggressive and disrespectful behavior.
While TV “has a great capacity to enlighten and entertain,” she added, 57 percent of all shows contain violence.
Even kids in homes without TVs can’t escape media violence, said Levine, and parents should take steps to protect their children.
“Viewing Violence: How Media Violence Affects Your Child’s and Adolescent’s Development” by Madeline Levine, (256 pages, Doubleday, $22.95).