By Minako Kamio
What influences did children have from the televised pictures of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks which made a great impact all over the world?
The Asahi Shimbun carried a letter from a reader just a while ago; "Day nursery kids are playing with flying paper planes. 'Look,' a kid said to the nurse. What she saw as she looked back was amazing: The kids were reveling in destroying two buildings they had created from building blocks by crashing paper planes against them. "
Thus, it is surprising that playing with paper planes, which is usually considered to be peaceful, was associated with the terrorist attack. Those pictures must have made a strong impression on the children―passenger planes flying into high-rise buildings, burning them up, and knocking them to the ground. Moreover, it might give them the sensation of a video game. This is rather fearful! Millions of people around the world, including children, must have seen those terrorist attack scenes on television.
Compared with previous generations, the present generation lives in a world where information is transmitted instantly, but we can hardly say if this change is really good. Since there is no limit to the amount of information from the media, people just become passive with an abundance of information ranging from terrorism, violence, sex crimes, bloodshed, and so on. The awful terrorist attack scenes that the children happened to see will be strongly imprinted in their memories. Such memories will never fade away throughout their lives.
When playing, children can also easily experience virtual reality due to the spread of video game machines. Today, we are living in a world where various artificial pictures, electronic sounds, and abundant information are flying around us. Can children tell the virtual world from the real world clearly ? They will be absorbed into our memories even though they include violent pictures which seem to be a bad influence on us.
In addition, those who get a strong influence from such pictures extends not only to very young children, but also to quite a large number of age groups. This is an unquestionable truth because copycat crimes of scenes from animation, video games, and films have increased. It is quite dangerous to confuse virtual reality with reality.
In Japan, though there is an "R" rating, it is inadequate as a countermeasure for those movies and TV programs. It is meaningless because anybody can see such pictures through other media if they want to. A more thorough system should be implemented.
We need to consider what we should give and teach the children of future generations who will carry not only the future of Japan, but also the planet Earth, because of modern media these are complicated and difficult times.