Music Violence

• The Parents Music Resource Center reports that American teenagers listen to an estimated 10,500 hours of rock music between the 7th and 12th grades alone- just 500 hours less than they spend in school over twelve years.
  

• Entertainment Monitor reported that only 10 of the top 40 popular CDs on sale during the 1995 holiday season were free of profanity, or lyrics dealing with drugs, violence and sex.
  

• A recent survey by the Recording Industry Association of America found that many parents do not know what lyrics are contained in the popular music there children listen to.
  

• In September 1995, Warner Music Group bowed to public pressure and announced it was severing its 50% stake in Interscope Records, home to Nine Inch Nails and controversial rap artists Snoop Doggy Dog and Dr. Dre rap artists simply turned to a different distribution network and their CDs continue to hit the stores with lyrics which glorify guns, rape, and murder.
  

• A study done by Susan Villani, researched the impact of media on children and adolescents. She conducted a 10 year review on different topics including music. Her studies found that there was a clear association between heavy metal and hard rock as a musical preference, which led to reckless behavior. It was found that children who preferred rock/heavy metal music had a higher rate of suicidal thoughts (2001).
  

• According to Villani, 22% of videos on MTV involved violence and VH1, CMT, and BET contained only 11% of violence. Rap videos had the most violence in them (2001).

News Media and the Internet

• Seeing, reading, and hearing about local and world events, such as natural disasters, catastrophic events, and crime reports, may cause children to experience stress, anxiety, and fears. Detailed and repetitive visual coverage of natural disasters and violent acts may cause children to believe that events are happening over and over.
  

• Television channels broadcasting live events as they unfold may give children stress, anxiety, and fears.
  

• Internet services and sites now report the news 24 hours a day.
  

• Internet pornography can now be blocked through filtering systems. Not all systems work, so children may still be exposed to it.

• According to Susan Villani’s study on media’s impact on children, she found that there was no difference in prevelance of intense negative emotional reactions to the news coverage of the Persian Gulf War between different age groups, but there was a sense of fear in the younger children examined by parents (2001).

Movie Violence

• Commercials that promote movies have negative effects on children if they contain any type of violence.
  

• Many psychologists agree that the more violence viewed, the more accepting children are of violence, the more it desensitizes them, the more likely they are to become violent.
  

• Movie death count: Die hard, 264; Rambo 3, 106; Wild Bunch, 89; Robocop 2, 74; and Total Recall, 74.

• Singer found that children who watched more than 6 hours of television per day reported more trauma symptoms and more violent behavior. Children anlso showed a preference for action and fighting shows.
  

• Susan Villani found that if a child sees someone in a movie drown by canoeing, the child is less likely to ever go canoeing (2001).