Television Use in America

• Nielsen Media Research reports that 99% of American households have a television set.

• American children spend an average of four hours a day watching television that is 28 hours a week, 2,400 hours a year and nearly 18,000 hours by the time they graduate from high school. In comparison, they spend only 13,000 hours in school, from kindergarten through twelfth grade.

• American television is the most violent in the world. About 60% of TV programs contain violence. An hour of prime-time television includes about five violent acts.¹ An hour of children's Saturday morning programming includes 20 to 26 violent acts.

• The average American child will witness 12,000 violent acts on television each year, amounting to about 200,000 violent acts by the time he turns 18 years old.

• Violent programming on the four broadcast networks has increased 14% in the past five years. In 1998, 67% of broadcast programs contained violence. In the same year, 87% of cable programs contained violence.

• Only 4% of violent programs emphasize an anti-violence theme.

• The National Television Violence Study identifies three primary effects TV violence has on children: 1) learning aggressive attitudes and behaviors; 2) becoming desensitized to real world violence; and 3) developing a fear of being victimized by violence.

• Young children, especially under age seven, often cannot distinguish reality from fantasy on television. However, they are capable of imitating and learning from violence in cartoons.
• In a University of Illinois study, people who had watched the most violent TV between birth and age eight committed the most serious crimes by age 30.

• A national opinion poll shows that 80% of Americans believe television violence is harmful to society.
• Out of all possible media influences, parents are most concerned with what their children see on television.

• In a 1999 survey taken by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 77% of the parents said they would use a V- chip often if they had one.