Children today spend four or more hours a day watching television; sleeping is the only thing they do more. To put it in perspective: your child wakes up, eats breakfast and heads off to school around eight. They come home around three and turn on the television, only to be watching through dinner until they start getting ready for bed.

Where is the time for homework, playing outside with friends, reading, studying, playing board games, or talking with their parents? There is no time; television has taken over our children's lives.

The average American child will see 200,000 violent acts and 16,000 murders on TV by age 18. That is 30 violent acts and almost three murders a day for 18 years. Children are seeing so much violence on television that they are desensitized to the human suffering it causes.

Every animated film produced from 1937 to 1999 contained violence, and all too often it is the "good guys" beating up the "bad guys" that make children see violence as OK. The violence portrayed on TV is distorting children's perceptions of right and wrong, of good and bad, of real and make believe, basically of reality.

Sex and stereotypes on television instill distorted beliefs. Most parents do not talk to their children about sex, so where are they getting their information? TV. Children, especially younger girls, are wearing fewer clothes than ever before. These girls are just portraying their favorite television characters. Sex is broadcast all over TV these days, on all of the biggest channels.

The number of sex scenes on TV has nearly doubled since 1998, with 70 percent of the top 20 most-watched shows by teens showing sexual content. About 15 percent of the scenes depict sexual activity between characters who have just met.

Stereotypes are prevalent. According to a study regarding prejudice on TV, white males were depicted as strong, while women were shown as sex objects. African American men were portrayed as aggressive, and African American women as inconsequential. These are not the things we want our children to go out into the real world thinking.

Television also distorts what children choose to do. Kids who watch more TV start smoking at an earlier age. Television viewing causes kids to start smoking earlier than peer pressure does. Television promotes not only smoking, but alcohol use. Studies have shown alcohol is the most common beverage shown on TV, and almost never in a negative light. Children are growing up thinking smoking and drinking are cool and that if they do it, they are cool too.

Children under age 8 cannot tell the difference between reality and fantasy, making them much more vulnerable to learning from and adopting as reality what they see on television. Parents are just as responsible as the television is. It is the parents who must set limits, enforce the rules of the TV, and even just sit and watch television with the kids, letting them know what is right and wrong. Television can make a drastic impact on the new generation and it is up to you, the parents, to teach our children that what they see on television is not always real.

MATTHEW DIOMEDE of Attleboro is a student at Bridgewater State College.