Introduction

In contemporary society, It is obvious to see that people can get more information and news much more convenient and faster by mass media, such as watching TV program, surfing the internet and social network etc. They need not to be informed by newspaper or magazines on a daily or a monthly basis. However, both positive and negative information are contained in mass media, which requires that people should consciously identify what kinds of information they actually need, especially for children and young adults. We are worried that children are more likely to be negatively influenced by violence and pornography in video games, movies, which do harm to their mental health.

As we all know the tragedy happened twenty years ago, Columbine high school shooting, which led to 13 deaths and 21 injuries. The police reported that they found some evidence in one shooter’s blog. He used to share strategies of a violence game, indicating that the violence game may have an impact on the shooting behaviors. According to Gentile, although there is no sufficient evidence to prove the relationship between the violence behavior and violence game or videos. He still believed that that violence video game potentially endangered the students’ school life, for instance, the increases rate of bullying,

the campus rape and school shooting. With the rapid development of society, youngsters are easily exposed to the mass media. Violence games and videos may mislead youngsters to resolve conflicts by violence as an acceptable way (Carll). As a result, measures should be taken to prevent children from being negatively influenced by the mass media, decreasing the happening of avoidable tragedies, helping children grow up happily and healthily.

The following text will be divided into two parts. Firstly, reasons why children are easily to be negatively influenced by the mass media. The second part is giving advice how to preventing children from being negatively influenced in mass media.

1. Reasons
1.1. Mental immaturity
Children are in developing and lack of life experience, in addition, they are full of curiosity and have wide interests. When exposed to various videos and games, they are not able to distinguish what is beneficial to their development. As a result, they are easily misled by pornographic, violent media and have bad behaviors. More dangerously, they might commit a crime at last.

1.2 Lack of optimistic social environment
Nowadays, youngsters have a burden of loads of school works. They are expected to show good performance in their examinations. They need to release their pressure somehow. Then, it seems that submerging themselves in mass media is the best way to have a relax, as there are less social activities in the society because of the overuse of technology. They may experienced a sense of achievement when they win the video games, which makes them rely more on the internet. It is inevitable that the informations with porn and violence will swoop into children’s minds. Additionally, the governments pay more attention in economic development, but ignore the full-development of youngsters.

1.3. Lack of parental supervision
Parental supervision also plays a significant role in children’s development. Some parents are busy with their works. They may give enough financial support for their children, but ignore to accompany with them. Parents allow children to kill the time by surfing the internet, playing video games and so on, but they do not make a strict regulation with their children, such as “how long can they surf the internet?” “what kinds of websites can they browse?” and so on. As raised above in 1.1, Children’s mind are not mature enough to tell good from bad by comparison, misguiding themselves in a wrong way.

1.4.Incomplete school education system
Schools tend to draw more attention on children’s academic performance, but care less about students’ daily life and mental health. I will take Chinese school education system as an example, Students in China may enjoy a good reputation in their academic performance and the education system is examination-oriented (Wang). They get high scores in examination and academic competitions. However, some of them are poor in getting along with people. Because numbers of schools in China make every effort to teach the knowledge but ignore teach students how to perform properly in the society, how to have a knowledge of telling the good from bad, which makes the student incomplete enough to adapt to the varying society.

2. Measures
After analyzing the reasons of the problem, all of us should make efforts to take actions protecting children from the dangers in mass media.
First of all, From the aspect of the society, local governments should organize some meaningful activities to enrich people’s daily life. It is an obligation for everyone to take an active part in the activities rather than burying oneself in a virtual world, no matter for the adults and children. Because the adults should always set a modal for youngsters. In addition, Governments can encourage people to establish a sense of judgement by putting up posters in community or playing videos on TV for public welfare purpose. Besides, to strengthen the regulation of multi-medias, contents with excessive violence and porn should be cleared to keep the internet environment safe and clean. Children are encouraged to use electrical devices and apps specially designed for them.

Secondly, From the aspect of family education, parents should care more about children’s mental health and find out what they really need. Parents should make an agreement on how to use mass media properly with their children and give enough supervision. For example, they should supervise the time of surfing internet, they also have the duty to help children filter the programs that beneficial for their growth. Parents should manage a fixed time to accompany with their kids, caring and loving them form the inside of the heart.

Last but not the least, in the aspect of the school, it seems school should take more actions to contribute students’ all-around development. Schools should not only pay attention to student’s academic performance, but caring more about their mental health. Some courses should be designed to improve the ability to distinguish right from wrong and their moral quality. Teachers should tell students how to protect themselves from negative multi-media, how to avoid the misunderstanding in a virtual world. Schools should also arrange more meaningful extracurricular activities of activities intending to strengthen the social bonds to enrich students’ school life. Let students experienced the pleasure in reality and decrease their dependence on the virtual world.

Conclusion

To sum up, saving children from negative mass media is a severe problem. Everyone in the society should make efforts on the basis of society, schools and families, and as children are developing, they are more cleared to distinguish what kinds of things are right and what are wrong. We do believe the problem can be smoothly solved eventually.