Children's Health

Social Bullying Common in TV Shows Kids Watch

Mean Behavior Depicted as Cool continued...

Amy Jordan, PhD, who oversees research on the impact of media on children, agrees that social aggression on television can serve as teachable moment, especially for young children.

Jordan is with the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and she chairs the Children, Adolescents and the Media division of the International Communication Association.

She says a single episode of a show like iCarly may promote positive messages to older children and negative ones to younger kids.

“Younger children are not likely to get subtle plot lines where inferences have to be made about how someone feels or what someone thinks,” she says.