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TV Tells Kids Fame is the Most Important Thing in Life, Study Finds
Filed under: In The News, Tween Culture, Teen Culture, Research Reveals: Tweens, Research Reveals: Teens
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Whoa!
Someone is watching reruns of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" on Sunday mornings. Change the channel. That's not what television is teaching kids, according to researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles.
The most important thing in life is to be famous. And you don't even have to be famous for being good. You can be famous for being tan.
LiveScience reports researchers looked at the values promoted on television when today's adults were growing up as opposed to what their kids watched. Their conclusion?
Ron Howard can be very proud of himself.
Before he was a film director, he played Opie Taylor on "The Andy Griffith Show" and Richie Cunningham on "Happy Days." Researchers used both shows -- as well as "The Lucy Show" and "Laverne & Shirley" -- to compare with modern shows like "American Idol" and "Hannah Montana."
They specifically wanted to study the values these shows promoted among 9- to 11-year-olds from 1967 to 2007.
Researchers found the old shows exalted benevolence, self-acceptance, community and tradition, while modern shows stress fame as the No. 1 value.
A sense of community was the No. 1 value back when Fonzie and the gang ruled the airwaves in the 1970s. By 2007, researchers found that value fell to No. 11. The top five values nowadays? Fame, achievement, popularity, image and financial success.
Not cool, as the Fonz would say.
"The rise of fame in preteen television may be one influence in the documented rise of narcissism in our culture," researcher Patricia Greenfield, a psychology professor at UCLA, tells LiveScience. "Popular television shows are part of the environment that causes the increased narcissism, but they also reflect the culture."
In 1997, the top five values were community feeling, benevolence (being kind and helping others), image, tradition and self-acceptance. In 2007, benevolence dropped to the 12th spot, while financial success went from 12th place in 1967 and 1997 to fifth in 2007.
The two least emphasized values in 2007 were spiritualism (No. 16) and tradition (No. 15). Tradition had previously ranked No. 4 in 1997.
LiveScience reports researchers analyzed Nielsen demographic data to determine the most popular shows with 9- to 11-year-olds and then conducted a survey of 60 participants, ages 18 to 59, to determine how important each value was in episodes of the various shows.
"The biggest change occurred from 1997 to 2007, when YouTube, Facebook and Twitter exploded in popularity," lead researcher Yalda Uhls tells LiveScience. "Their growth parallels the rise in narcissism and the drop in empathy among college students in the United States, as other research has shown."
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 2)
7-17-2011 @ 10:36AM
Sara said...Needed a research study to figure this one out? Stop paying all these people so much money to be famous for nothing other than being tasteless, drinking and sleeping with whoever comes along. It's disgusting really and people should stop watching them. Snookie is an author, really, the girl can barely read and has no clue what she says along with the rest of the cast of the Jersey Shore. Stop making these people famous and instill values in your kids!
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7-16-2011 @ 8:49AM
mrkdr1 said...Even Disney TV teaches kids to be shallow narcissists who only have self value if they are singing "star" who dates interracially or lives an alternative lifestyle.
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7-16-2011 @ 8:52AM
Get Real said...Instead of blaming the media, which is REAL convenient, I realize, how about blaming the fact that these days both parents have full time jobs - and THEN some - just to pay the cost of living. Go back 50 years and most households had a working father and a stay-at-home mom who could actually take interest in her children. The "wonderful" advent of the women's liberation movement effectively doubled the workforce, enabling companies to get two employees for the price of one, with the blessing of the gullible American public for doing the right thing and hiring women. That's not to say that women should not be allowed to work, but when the social order changed so that women were EXPECTED to work, the raising of children became something passed off to daycare centers and elderly relatives who are not up to the task. The media is simply giving people what they want. If the ratings were super high on educational shows, believe me, that's what you would be seeing 24 hours a day.
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7-16-2011 @ 9:02AM
JVL said...What a load of horse manure!
What did The Mickey Mouse Club portray? If you're blonde, blue-eyed, five years old and cute, like Karen and Cubby, you get to be famous. If your pre-adolescence blossoms into full-bosomed Italian bustline, you will be the heroine, just like Annette Funicello.
Then there was Sky King, a sheriff who took the law into his own hands. Ditto The Lone Ranger, The Cisco Kid (and Pancho), and Roy Rogers.
Locally, out of Philadelphia, there was Sally Starr, whose frequent absences from the show were caused, as I was told by the nurse who worked her case, by her alcoholism.
TV shows do not portray reality. THEY NEVER HAVE!!!
It is up to PARENTS to supervise what children watch and monitor when and where the boob tube is TURNED ON. That includes when your kids are in child care, and at school.
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7-16-2011 @ 9:33AM
Bill said...Could be a change due to political correctness brought on by the "progressive" movement.
7-16-2011 @ 8:28PM
jotwinowski said...Fiction, by definition, is not reality. But note that Sky King, The Lone Ranger, etc. were all selfless do-gooders who spent their lives helping. The shows were often simplistic but the values were accessible to children. Children were encouraged to consider doing the right thing as the path to follow. As far as I can tell, most modern shows involve doing exactly what you want, exactly when you want it and "making it" any way you can. Whether that is a reflection of our society or a product of it, it is what children learn and what their heroes are.
But I do agree that much of the problem is the result of the loss of parental supervision. For a daycare provider, parking the kids in front of a TV is an easy way to keep them quiet. Nor are they equipped to inculcate values - that is the duty of the family.
However, it is not that salaries are that much lower in constant dollars; it is that our requirements are so much greater. In the 50's we had a single TV in a family, if we had that much. Now we require one in every room plus a 42" flat screen in the "entertainment" room. Most families MUST have, at least two computers, many "require" more. How many families can survive with just ONE car? And then there are all the little special items we all "have to have."! We NEED cell phones (even for 5 yr olds) video games, multiple CD players (one for each member of the family, including small children) portable DVD players, Blackberries, i-pads, i-phones, etc. Is all this really necessary?
7-17-2011 @ 6:31PM
Tom said...Even more than that. Now there is cable TV, which not only CAN use profanity, sexual and violent content, it seems they are OBLIGATED to include those in every program. Children who live in homes with cable, unattended, are going to watch everything they shouldn't be exposed to because they know they can. HBO leads the Emmy nominations because all restrictions are lifted for them. Yet they carry no ratings. and furthermore, the Supreme Court has decalred that violent video games can't be restricted from minors because of free speach... although sexual content CAN.
7-16-2011 @ 8:44PM
JACKIE said...I grew up in a logging town in Oregon. Our tv coverage was courtesy of a repeater for the TWO stations in Eugene. During hot weather they'd shut it down because of fire danger. Kids programming? What was that? We spent a lot of time at the local library.
7-16-2011 @ 9:30AM
Bill said...More of the results of PC and the progressive agenda.
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7-16-2011 @ 9:39AM
cassius said...Geeesh - old news. Marshall McCluhan first made these observations about TV in the late 1940's and throughout his life
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7-16-2011 @ 10:01AM
Bryan Merritt said...I'll tell you what they are teaching our kids and that is to hate America and capitolism and to love socialism and marxism and to be good little Democrats like Obama UMM UMM UMM .
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7-16-2011 @ 1:06PM
jiniries said...It's the parents responsibility to supervise what their children watch on TV.
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7-16-2011 @ 7:21PM
Mary Wood said...I do not disagree that it is the parent's obligation to parent (determine what will be viewed in the household) but it is also true that there are virtually no chanels (other than faith-based networks) offering family-oriented, patriotic, wholesome entertainment. Profanity, adultry, violence....just go down the Ten Commandments and check them off, one by one; they are all blatantly violated and that violation is celebrated. The corruption of the values of the past is DEMANDED by those misusing the "Freedom of Speech" amendment. For them, the country cannot become too corrupted.
7-16-2011 @ 12:33PM
mary said...Why should television be teaching or not teaching kids ANYTHING? That's the job of the parents!
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7-16-2011 @ 12:44PM
Wendy said...What about all that "I am someone special" they've been telling kindergarteners since the 90's? Or the parents that, instead of correcting the child when they do something stupid, come down on the adult who actually DID intervene to stop it for "hurting" their "precious"?
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7-16-2011 @ 12:53PM
Len said...When you allow and use a media to become your "child care provider" (how's that for PC?), when you turn your back on providing direct, person to person influence, when you are "too busy" to teach and yes, lead, your child, you can expect people with an agenda to step in and fill the void. AND when you elect to ignore those people - too busy, too occupied - THEY dictate what will be taught. It is an incredible power and one that will be exploited. A child is the sum total of the direction of his or her parents - as well as their environment... Lazy or otherwise occupied breeds an empty pallet for others to enter and color with thier own motivation.
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7-16-2011 @ 8:19PM
marc said...For ALL of you- the FACT that TV programs DO have PC as their content is NOT arguable!! SOOO many parents trust? Disney Channel, and I watched about 10 minutes with my grandson- TERRIBLE what the powers that be have done to the Disney name, and Walt's vision!!!!
7-16-2011 @ 2:14PM
Daniel Smith said...Great article! We should start incorporating anti-narcissism studies into school curriculums. Parents cant always be there so lets put a little of the responsibility on our media oulets. Their power is greater than you think! Its happening right before our eyes.
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7-16-2011 @ 3:14PM
CAV44 said...As bad as television may be, parents should be a whole lot more concerned about what their children are being taught, or not taught, in our public schools.
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7-16-2011 @ 4:45PM
Tom said...Uncalled for:
If children watched polticial news programs, we should be a little grateful for the unintended education. The only reason children would be in danger of developing a way to think on their own is if they somehow sided with their parent's political opponent, and how sad that would be for a child to not only learn what's going on, but risked being orphaned by parents who wouldn't allow them their own opinion.
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