At 11/16/09 03:13 PM, ZeldaFreak701 wrote:
Well I finished most of my report. I walk through different types of censorship like religious and political. My closing argument was how it limits creativity and that parents should be more responsible about what their kids watch. I used a lot of visuals and I cited Liljim's website that he sent to me. But I also wanted something from a parent's point of view.
I can provide that... I have 2 boys, one is 9 the other is 5.
To begin, I don't have a problem censoring certain things from my children, but I personally feel censorship should be contextual. I think I should be able to ley my kids watch any programming deemed suitable for children without fear of said programming promoting things like drug use, sex or illegal activities.
I can personally attest that exposure to questionable content in tv, movies and video games does have a psychological effect on younger kids. I used to let my oldest son play and whatch whatever he wanted because as a young a dult I had the exact same view that censorship was complete bullshit that many people posting in this thread share. Afterall, I was able to watch anything I wanted and not go killing people.
What I observed with my son was not the desire to act out what he saw, but rather a more detached outlook on life resulting in poor behavior and a lack of respect for other people. Of course, I don't blame the tv and games for that, I blamed myself for exposing him to that type of content at such a young age.
So my wife and I paid more attention to what he was watching and playing and made sure to talk to him about how what was on tv wasn't real. With just a little basic programming his attitude was corrected and he's had a pretty normal and happy childhood thus far.
With that said, now that my oldest son is maturing and knows reality from fantasy, right form wrong, etc... I have been letting him play more violent video games, and I don't shoo him out of the room every time there is a boob on some HBO movie, but his younger brother is still having his tv and gaming habits censored by us.
I'm a firm beleiver it is up to parents to monitor what their kids are watching, but there does need to be cooperation from people producing programs for networks and time slots targeting children. I shouldn't have to worry about what Nickelodian or Disney are airing in daytime/primetime hours because those networks should take responsibilty for what they are airing when their target demographic is children.
When it comes to networks for general audiences and after-hours programming however, I strongly disagree with censorship. The standards for censorship are supposedly based on protecting people, but the problem with that is one group pf people gets to decide what we need protection from.
Who decided that it is more harmful to my psyche to see a movie about 2 people who are in love and have sex NAKED than it is to see a bunch of morally ambigious whores try and get Flava Flav to marry them? Who decided that it would hurt me to hear the word 'Fuck', but there is no harm at all in Fox news deliberately promoting ignorance and extremism?
Mandated censorship doesn't work. It takes a network being responsible and parents actually parenting to protect kids. When it comes to everyone else, people just need to take responsibility for themselves and quit blaming tv for everything.
