In a study several years ago, Stanford University psychologist Albert Bandura found cartoon violence as potent as real-life models in increasing violence among youngsters. A University of Kansas researcher reported that Saturday-morning cartoons markedly decreased imaginative play and hiked aggression among 66 preschoolers. In a year-long study of 200 preschoolers, Yale University Drs. Jerome L. and Dorothy Singer found that playground depredations like fighting and kicking were far greater among steady action-cartoon viewers.
Indeed, the Saturday-morning “kid vid” ghetto is the most violent time on TV. It bathes the prime audience of youngsters from 3 to 13 years old with 25 violent acts per hour, much of it in a poisonous brew of violent programs and aggressive commercials designed to sell such products as breakfast cereals and action toys. According to one study, these commercials have a rate of violence about three times that of the programs themselves.
British psychologist William A. Belson studied the television diets and subsequent behavior of 1565 London boys ages…
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