[Studies That Show Childhood] Censorship Better for Society?

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Does anyone know of any studies that show that censoring children from curse words, nudity, and sexual language on radio and television is better or worse for society?

Not specifically. But I was raised like that. My mom was pretty extreme. And well, we all know what happened there.

::flips everyone off::

Knowledge, no matter how "vulgar", should be freely given to everyone.

Look into freeschool models. Read "Summerhill." I think the evidence shows that censoring children from curse words, nudity, and sexual language on radio and television does no harm and may be better.

Correction: I think the evidence shows that exposing children to curse words, nudity, and sexual language on radio and television does no harm and may be better.

Censorship is bad when it becomes too invasive.

For example, I do not mind when a PG-12 cartoon has swearing or partial nudity. Lets be realistic here, kids swear and can see porn on the internet since age 10 on average.

I do mind when a movie like SAW is not censored PG-18.

However, current censorship...where movies and cartoons for younger audiences can't even say a small swear word or show some leg ... or show some real life consequences (aka characters dying, losing limbs or being in pain) that's ridiculous. Anime is one of the most censored things in the United States and its criminal in the sense that they change the storyline and dialog in many of those works (which i'm sure if it happened to a US film overseas there'd be lawsuits and stuff).

I'd like to add though, that I think the better course of action has less to do with censorship and more to do with positive reinforcements. Exposure to positive ideas about sex, use of language, etc.

It's kind of a utopian dream to raise a child like that. If the world weren't as it is, then yeah, there'd be no need to expose kids to things like that. But... at what age do they learn what life is really like? And how will they react? Parenting is training for the real world. Hiding dirty things from your children is not the real world.

i really dont like censorship at all but obviously not everyone was born with the same morals (especially the obvious ones) so its an unfortunate necessity

It wouldn't be too hard to find on the internet - but would you believe it anyway?

We were taught at Uni about the openness of certain European countries and Scandanavia about sex/porn etc... They did a study at the 20 year mark on sexcrime before and after the new laws.

1. Despite the introduction of "easy access to sex materials" sexcrime had still risen.
2. Comparative to other countries, it had increased significantly less.

So, the conclusions were that easy access to material does actually reduce sex crime but that the amount of sex crime in the world was constantly (and rapidly) rising with the population explosion.

If there are advantages to this type of censorship, I suspect it is situational. In some situations, it may do more harm than good. Examples:

1) A child is prohibited from learning anything about sex until she is 16. Throughout her childhood, she is sexually abused. She is deeply traumatized by these experiences but because of her lack of knowledge, she does not know that it is considered wrong and that she has the right to report the abuser and ask for help.

2) A child who has been protected from depictions of violence and information about violence is beaten by a relative or babysitter. Since he doesn't know anything about violence, he doesn't know how to explain the situation to another adult. He assumes he must deserve it, or he over-estimates the abuser's ability to retaliate and remains silent out of fear.

3) A child who has been protected from curse words is constantly called vulgar names by the other kids at school. She doesn't know what the words mean so she doesn't know how to respond or what to do about it.

These forms of "protection" can render kids powerless to defend themselves. Believe it or not, some parents who exercise these forms of censorship are unable to control their own violent impulses. Then the child is subjected to violence only within the family. You can imagine the consequences. I know that this happens because I am familiar with one such family.

Censorship is ugly and evil. It is only conservative fear that provokes the idea that it's a good thing, and nothing can be hidden from, say, a curious preteen.

There is nothing in this world that is so offensive that it should be hidden from everyone. Nothing.

As I see it, censorship is for people who can't take the idea of actually talking about ideas.

I think specifically we're talking about whether or not the ideas and images we work so hard to protect children from are actually harmful.