Influencia de la televisión violenta en ni？os de una escuela pública de Bogotá, Colombia

objective: to evaluate the impact that a violent and a non-violent movie may cause on scholars. methods: in bogotá, 125 public primary school students were surveyed, applying a questionnaire to learn both about their daily life violence and their attitude towards it. two weeks later, they were shown one violent movie, and two weeks later a non-violent one. children were asked to draw their families, express their opinions and answer a questionnaire after each movie. results: the initial survey showed that 23,6 % of the children reported violent responses when they were offended, 39,8 % reported some kind of familiar violence and 19,5 % identified themselves with a violent figure. boys were more prone to respond violently when offended and to identify themselves with a violent figure than girls (p=0,004). compared with the non-violent movie, a greater percentage of children excluded themselves from the family drawing after watching the violent movie (odds ratio (or): 2.55; 95 % interval confidence (95 % ci) 1.22-5.43, p=0,01). the family drawing after the violent movie also showed more emotional signs (or: 3.13; 95 % ci: 1.35-7.52; p=0,0053) and more aggressive signs (or: 2.55; 95 % ci: 1.22-5.43; p=0,01) than the family drawing after the non-violent movie. conclusions: the family drawing test showed the immediate impact of television. television violence negatively influences kids and should be avoided.