TV Viewing Hazardous to Moral Health, CMI Study Finds

Who is teaching your children when they are NOT in school? Where and what do they learn when they are outside of the classrooms?

Posted at LifeSiteNews.com is an article based on a study by the Culture and Media Institute that claims that watching TV does a great deal to shape a child's moral values and sense of responsibility.

Heavy television watching parallels a decline in moral values and a sense of personal responsibility, a new study by the Culture and Media Institute of the Media Research Center has found.

In a new Special Report entitled “The Media Assault on American Values,” released by the CMI June 6, a clear correlation was shown to exist between an increase in the number of hours a viewer spent watching TV and a decline in the strength of personal moral values. The report explored the findings of the National Cultural Values Survey, a major study of American cultural and moral values conducted in December 2006.

Among the areas affected by TV viewing habits were attitudes towards abortion, charitable giving, sexual morality, financial self-sufficiency on healthcare and retirement, and church attendance.

There is probably the argument that those who already have low moral values and a poor sense of responsibility are the ones who are watching too much TV, however, it's difficult to make this argument with children since they're only developing their moral values.

I firmly believe, having once been a child and having been raised in the TV generation, that the largest influence on my moral development and my sense of responsibility was peers, celebrities (TV & music), schools, and then parents; in that order.