and contribute to shaping our beliefs and values. Media offer, as Williams notes,
“mass social learning.”^63
The overabundance of media in daily life is perhaps most evident when applied to
young people. And it is these young children with whom we are mostly concerned in
this chapter, as they are the ones being shaped by the messages they receive at this
early age. It is estimated that young children spend about four hours a day watching
television. Infants and toddlers alone watch a screen an average of two hours a day.
By the time a student graduates from the twelfth grade, he or she will have spent
more time watching television than in the classroom. In the average American
home, the television in on seven hours a day. This, of course, does not even include
the twenty to forty hours children spend each week playing video games.^64
The issue, of course, is not the amount of time spent watching television or playing
with an Xbox but rather the content of the messages young people are receiving from
these outlets. A cursory examination of those messages, or a summary of what author-
ities say about those messages, reveals an overabundance of images that promote
undesirable perceptions regarding violence, gender, sexuality, race, the elderly, and
drugs and alcohol. Delgado talks about the power of those messages. He asserts that
they“help constitute our daily lives by shaping our experiences and providing the
content for much of what we talk about (and how we talk) at the interpersonal
level.”^65 Perhaps the clearest explanation of the role that mass media play in learning
about culture is found in Cultivation Theory, which was developed by Gerbner and
Gross.^66 At the core, this theory asserts that media, particularly mass media, are an
influential“socializing agent”in shaping future perceptions.^67 Specifically, the theory
avers that, over time, television shapes the viewers’notion of reality. The words“over
time”are important to Cultivation Theory, as“the greater the amount of television
you watch, the more your worldview comes to accord with the beliefs, values, and
attitudes you see on the screen.”^68
As already indicated, because the messages you receive via most media are so
diverse, it is difficult to assign a direct link to media’s role in the socialization process.
Yet there are thousands of studies that attempt to document the part television plays
in the life of young children. The Kaiser Family Foundation and the American Acad-
emy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry offer the following summary of how televi-
sion viewing among young children gets reflected in their perceptions of the world:- Extensiveviewing of television violence by children causes greater aggressiveness.
In addition, children who watch more than four hours of television a day have
lower grades in school and are often overweight. - Television viewing takes the place of activities such as playing with friends, being
physically active, reading, and doing homework.^69
Although the portrayals of sex roles have changed somewhat over the last decade,
men, at least on television,“are typically shown as rational, competitive, and violent,
while women are sensitive, romantic, peaceful, and submissive”^70 As noted elsewhere,
it is not only television that is playing a major role in the socialization process. Young
boys in particular are spending as much as 50 hours a week playing video games with
names likeGrand Theft Auto,Assassin’s Creed, andCall of Duty. Each of these (and
there are countless others) glorifies aggressive behavior and violence, behavior that
many experts believe is having a negative effect on young people. In fact, due to con-
cerns about the adverse effects of too much television, the American Academy of
Pediatrics recommends no screen time for children age two and younger. They also
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