Media Censorship and Youth

by Mattiefresh in Issues, September 10, 2009

The purpose of this article is to raise awareness in parents about what their children are exposed to as they spend countless hours in the realm of electronic media. The audience is not only the parents however, but also children or future parents who are worried about their exposure or the exposure of their future children to a vast amount of explicit material.

In an unofficial survey, 16 college students at the University of Central Florida were asked, “What do you think of the current standards of Media?” They were able to choose from three different answers: 1. Media today should be stricter and not allow so much to be shown/said. 2. Media today should be less strict and allow more to be shown/said. 3. Media today is fine the way it is. About 62% thought that media today should be more strict in what they allow.

Unfortunately, this leads to two main questions. How much is too much and who determines what will be allowed and not allowed. Perhaps if there were strict rules enforced in movie theaters and online, that would protect the children who seek, or accidentally, from most explicit sexual and violent content. Overall, the vast amount of explicit content in all forms of electronic media, and the amount of time spent by children on such media, should raise a red flag for parents who are concerned with the future of their children and therefore be a priority among them. Parents have the great responsibility of ensuring both the physical and mental security of their children. In the end, parents cannot protect their children from everything and eventually the children must be independent, until then parents can at the very least give the children a solid moral foundation to take off from. Unfortunately, this may in fact mean restricting some of the time spent using electronic media.