George Gerbner, creator of the Cultivation Theory, stated “that because TV contains so much violence, people who psend the most time in front of the tube develop an exaggerated belief in a mean and scary world.” In essence, television shapes the society we live in. There are different types of TV watchers: the heavy viewers who watch on average four hours of television every day, and light viewers who watch at least two hours of television everyday. Since the heavy viewers watch so much TV everyday, they begin to view the world as they do on TV. As Nancy Signorielli said, “those who spend more time ‘living’ in the world of television are more likely to see the ‘real world’ in terms of the images, values, portrayals and ideologies that emerge through the lens of television.” These heavy viewers are more prone to violence on television since they watch such a large amount everyday which then as a result causes them to have the mean world syndrome. This cynical mindset is when heavy viewers have a “general mistrust of others” because of all the violence they have been exposed to.

In this comic, you can tell the little boy is so entranced in watching the television show, which seems to be violent, because his eyes are huge and he is very close to the screen. This little boy is obviously a heavy viewer because of how he responds to his mothers comment about his head exploding if he watches more violence. The fact that the little boy thinks his head exploding is “cool” shows how the television watching and violence has affected him.