Children And TV SURVEYS EXPOSE SOME FALLACIES

Press, Volume C, Issue 29682, 28 November 1961, Page 16

Children And TV SURVEYS EXPOSE SOME FALLACIES

[Specially written for “The Press" by GABRIELLA MacLEODI

London, October 14.—The battle for gaining the favourable attention of the Pilkington Committee goes on with greater fervour than before. In a few months the report will be finished, and its findings are destined to shape television and radio in Britain for a long time to come—that is, if they are heeded. The theme with the greatest variations undoubtedly concerns children. Their tastes are not so much dictated by television as it seemed from previous research; it is the children who dictate their preferences to the adult world. Until now it has been a fairly commonly accepted theory that children watch what their parents watch. Why such an assumption, idyllic and rather oldfashioned, has gained groundat all. I do not know. When it comes to family cooking, that, too. is geared towards what children love to eat; where the family goes for a picnic on the Sunday afternoon is also largely dependent on the children’s choice And this, it seems, is the case in television. This is borne out by the two latest surveys published, the American ‘‘Tclevison in the Lives of Children” and “What Children Watch," a report by Granada Independent Television. Preferences According to the Granada survey, children in Britain prefer to watch I.T.V. rather than the 8.8. C. They view at decidedly adult times, latenight programmes specially designed for adult audiences, if given the choice of something informative and something entertaining, children choose entertainment, and action-packed entertainment at that, every time. The survey backs this contention with some impressive figures. Each average weekday night there are 400.000 children between the ages of five and seven watching between 8.30 and 9.30, and 1,000,000 children aged eight to 11 watching between 9 and 9.30 p.m. Those in the age group from 12 to 15 watch between 9.30 and 10. p.m.— another 1.000,000 of them. How children use television is fully discussed in the television survey from America. Apparently, children’s approach to television programmes is little different from their approach to books. That they seek “fantasy” and “action”—spelt out like this between quotation marks—seems to be regarded in re. search statistics as almost an impediment with dark psychological overtones. But leave the research hysteria behind, and remember your own youth; the books of childhood were adventure stories, bloodthirsty, heroic, crazy and unreal. A rabbit speaking to you was the accepted thing when you were five years old. Indians collecting scalps especially appealed to you at the age of nine. Books allow each child to conjure up his own brand of fantasy; but on television the programme that wins is the one which can convey passion, action, and fighting most realistically. These no longer are depicted like the static images of illustrations i- books. People on the screen act, move, and speak like real adults. Possible Dangers And here the possible danger begins. It the bad man looks like the gardner next door If he has an artificial leg like the doctor who treats Johnny, if the fantasy suddenly turns frighteningly real in the mouths of screen parents abusing each other, sounding just like Mummy and Daddy—then compiexs may begin to grow in the child’s mind. This kind of violence is apparently the one from which children have to be sheltered most on the screen. The perfectly normal family on the screen is associated i- the child’s mind with the situation in his own home. I’ has been found that if an adult woman (who can be substituted by the child for his own mother) screams in agony, the incident frightens the viewing child. If a child on the screen is hurt, or if a dog is tortured, that too upsets him more than if he saw science-fiction characters punching holes in each other's faces. None of these surveys offers a solution. They pro-

vide statistical data, which one would think should serve as a basis for constructive adjustments to suit the problems in television programmes. These problems become more complicated that children watch at adult times programmes which are aimed at supposedly adult audiences. But the “fantasy” we find here—a necessary narcotic also for adult viewers—is more subtle, slightly more gruesome, and also slightly less articulate or stimulating than the well-constructed fairy-tale. What this means is that in watching television the child, unequipped at his age mentally and emotionally as well as rationally to meet the adult figures and passions of the adult world, will be plunged nevertheless into that world before he can cope with it in any way. This in turn will influence his development, and the child, pressurised into becoming an adult at a pace that is not his own. will arrive at the threshold of maturity unable to fit in, or even to understand what it is all about, and what is required of him as an adult. That we may already have arrived at this point is indicated in the adult programmes on television which not only seem to have been created for an audience that “never quite grew up," but which also leave the suspicion that these programmes are created by people in the same category. What will break the vicious circle? A whiff of reality, I hope. For one thing is certain, not everyone goes through the cycles of life to adulthood the retarded way, and miraculously even today quite enough adolescents can be found who desert television for the sake of real action, such as tramping, or tinkering with an old car. Or they return to the world of controlled and purposeful “fantasy.” the world of good books. Statistics bear this out. The more intelligent children especially take more interest in books as they approach adulthood. They become newspaper readers, and begin to take an interest in current affairs. Presumably a percentage <: these children will also find their way to creative television, and will provide there that kernel of artistic creation, which will always battle, on to uplift and fulfil, while remembering that tuis result cannot be achieved in art without being entertaining as well.