I was recently dragged to see "Grown Ups" the movie with a bunch of adolescents.  I found the movie to centre around a bunch of friends who were constantly bickering with each other, hurling insults and what the kids call "burns".  It was a thoroughly unpleasant film, but one which made me look around at my company and conclude that for many of them this was their life.  In my class over particularly the last year, in my youth group and in the smaller groups I had been working with at summer camp, I had to come to the inescapable conclusion that many (though not all) took great joy in endless insults, hurts and just generally being nasty to each other.  It is an epidemic. 

A friend at camp added that many of the current TV sitcoms, such as "Two and a Half Men", have exactly the same tone to them.  I don't watch sitcoms, so I have to take his word for it.  If however that is the case, it begins to explain a lot.  I've always said that the biggest influence from TV on young people is not the violence or sex.  It is the behaviour that they view on these sitcoms, many of which have main characters and stars close to their own age.  They are ordinary people in ordinary situations, and so they become powerful role models displaying "ordinary" behaviour.  Children come to view these behavioural offerings much more credibly than they do the violent or graphic scenes.  I think most children can filter out and recognise the irrelevance to their own lives of serial killers and such.  But the sitcom sneaks up on them and hooks into their sense of normalcy. 

Let them watch "Criminal Minds" or "Dexter", but keep them away from "Two and a Half Men"!