When I was a child, Saturday morning was a day I looked forward to all week long. I generally woke up before anyone else in the house and raced to the living room because Saturday was the day that I was allowed to watch cartoons. The early morning cartoons were not even that enjoyable from what I can remember, but the fact that they were cartoons coupled with the fact that I had permission to watch them was enough for me.
I used to watch cartoons like G.I. Joe, Transformers, Johnny Quest, The Smurfs, The Snorks, The Jetsons, The Justice League, and The Road Runner. A lot of the cartoons I watched exhibited violence in some shape or form, with the good guys inevitably defeating the bad guys. The others were more or less situation comedies, with the occasional evil antagonist making appearancees to keep things interesting.
More Cartoons Than Ever
A lot of things have happened between the days of my childhood and today. Now cartoons are available every day, and there are channels that show nothing but cartoons 24 hours a day. There are thousands of videos available that you can pop into the dvd player in your car, or perhaps use them to appease your children when you need a break at some point during the day. Children are exposed to cartoons more now than ever before.
The cartoon industry has changed too. Most cartoons steer away from violence or good guys versus bad guys themes to appease the ever growing parenting segment that would prefer that children, especially small children, be exposed to as little violence as possible. Cartoons are now a marketing strategy. Kids who watch cartoons influence their parents spending decisions to the tune of billions of dollars every year - everything from fast food to dvd purchases and all of those toys that get marketed during commercial breaks.
Overall Quality is Low
With all the air time that cartoons receive, there is a demand for more programming like their never has been before. In the regular TV market, this has resulted in the all-too-common situation where you can have 200 channels and yet nothing interesting is on any of them. The same thing happens in the cartoon industry. While the animation and picture quality has increased dramatically from my childhood days, the editorial quality has decreased substantially.The people making cartoons don't care about the ways that they are influencing children beyond influencing the spending habits of their parents. Let me take a step back here - most of the people making cartoons don't care. This is a cause for concern.
I can't say that I know about all of the cartoons on TV, but I do have plenty of experience sitting down with my own children to see what they are watching and what they are interested in. Some of the cartoons are great. They exhibit well mannered children, robots, or animals having a lot of fun being creative, learning, and helping others. Other cartoons are terrible. The characters behave poorly, have bad attitudes, and produce bad examples for our children to follow.
Our children learn from television as much as they learn from their parents and their friends. They will emulate the behavior they see on screen just like we did as children. The overexposure to the cartoon world serves to increase the amount of emulation and extends the affect from simple play time fun to real and long term behavioral modification.
Pay Attention
Watch what your kids are watching. Pay attention to the characters and the story lines and make a decision about how appropriate they are for your children. Don't walk away during the commercials, but pay close attention to the amount of commercial time that is shown during a given cartoon and to the content of those commercials. You will find that there are certain channels you want to stay away from all together, and that there are plenty of cartoons that simply don't deserve any air time at all. PBS cartoons are usually pretty good, but even PBS has worked in commercial sponsors like McDonald's and Disney Cruise Lines that get plenty of exposure.Cartoons and Their Influence on Children Interaction
