Television And Violent Crime
Children are born ready to imitate adult behavior. That they can imitate an array of adult facial expressions have been demonstrated in newborns as young as a few hours old, before they are even old enough to know that they have facial features. It is a most useful instinct, for the developing child must learn and master a vast repertoire of behavior in short order.
But while children have instinctive desire to imitate, they do not possess an instinct for determining whether a behavior ought to be imitated. They will imitate anything, including behavior that most adults regard as destructive and antisocial. It may give pause for thought, then, to learn that infants as young as fourteen months demonstrably observe and incorporate behavior seen on television.
The average American preschooler watches more than twenty-seven hours of television per week. This might not be bad if these young children understood what they were watching. But they don’t. Up through ages three and four, most children are unable to distinguish fact from fantasy on TV, and remain unable to do so despite adult coaching. In the minds of young children, television is a source of entirely factual information regarding how the world works . There are no limits to their credulity.To cite one example, an Indiana school board had to issue an advisory to young children that, no, there is no such thing as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Children had been crawling down storm drains looking for them.
Naturally, as children get older, they come to know better, but their earliest and deepest impressions are laid down at an age when they still see television as a factual source of information about the outside world. In that world, it seems, violence is common and the commission of violence is generally powerful, exciting, charismatic, and effective. In later life, serious violence is most likely to erupt at moments of severe stress — and it is precisely at such moments that adolescents and adults are most likely to revert to their earliest, most visceral sense of the role of violence in society and in personal behavior. Much of this sense will have come from television.
阅读自测
Ⅰ. Fill in each blank with the proper form of the words given in the brackets:
1. She has an________ (instinct) sympathy with the poor people.
2. These conclusions are ________ (demonstrate) wrong.
3. There is a slight________ (face) resemblance between the two men.
4. This man has coaxed millions of pounds from a________ (credulity) public.
Ⅱ. Are these statements True o r False according to the article :
1. Babies know they have facial features just after they come to the world.
2. Children can imitate everything because imitation is their instinct.
3. Television is a source of entirely factual information regarding how the world works.
4. Television plays an important role in giving rise to social violence.
参考答案
Ⅰ. 1.instinctive 2.demonstrably 3.facial 4.credulous
Ⅱ. 1.F 2.T 3.F 4.T
责任编辑：admin
相关文章
版权及免责声明
① 凡本网注明“稿件来源：北京新东方学校”的所有文字、图片和音视频稿件，版权均属北京市海淀区私立新东方学校所有，转载请注明“来源：北京新东方学校”。
② 本网未注明“稿件来源：北京新东方学校”的文/图等稿件均为转载稿，本网转载仅基于传递更多信息之目的，并不意味着赞同转载稿的观点或证实其内容的真实性。如其他媒体、网站或个人从本网下载使用，需自负版权等法律责任。如擅自篡改为“稿件来源：北京新东方学校”，本网将依法追究法律责任。
③ 如有本网转载稿涉及版权等问题，请作者见稿后速来电与北京新东方网联系，电话：010-62578989。
关于我们
新手帮助
报班支付方式
报名查询
售后服务