A US study says children who are more exposed to bad words through television and video games are more likely to be aggressive and use profanity.
A team of researchers from Brigham Young University observed 266 school students in the Midwest to study the possible association between their attitudes about profanity and aggression with their exposure to bad words via TV and video games.
According to the findings published in the journal Pediatrics, children who were more exposed to bad words were more likely to use expletives themselves and were exhibiting more aggressive behavior.
The study was only conducted to find out possible associations between bad words on TV and aggression in kids, not whether one causes the other, the researchers noted urging for more sophisticated investigations.
“From using profanity to aggressive behavior, it was a pretty strong correlation,” said lead author Sarah Coyne. “and these are not even the worst [profane] words that kids are exposed to, since there are seven dirty words that you're not allowed to say on TV. So we're seeing that even exposure to lower forms of profanity are having an effect on behavior.”
“Profanity is kind of like a stepping stone,” Coyne noted. “You don't go to a movie, hear a bad word, and then go shoot somebody. But when youth both hear and then try profanity out for themselves it can start a downward slide toward more aggressive behavior.”
She suggested parents pay a little more attention to the language in the programs and games their kids use.
“We tend to be passive viewers,” Coyne warned. “We're so used to hearing profanity all over the place, we might not even notice it (on TV).”
SJM/TE