Desensitization To Violence In The Media Essay

Desensitization to violence has become a common phenomenon in today’s society. This paper aims to identify and explain the effects that violent media can have on an individual and society as a whole. It has been proven that prolonged exposure to violence in the media can alter an individual’s cognitive processes, ability to empathize with victims of violence, and the way in which they view social norms. Desensitization is most commonly defined as repeated exposure to an event or stimuli that causes an individual to react less and/or become less affected by the event/stimuli. Desensitization to violence is less noticeable than one may think. There is much research to support that violent music, films, television (series and/or newscasts),

Although, there is evidence (via survey), that reveals numerous children and adolescences allocate a considerable amount of time to absorbing violent media. Furthermore, it has also been identified that by reducing the consumption of violent media, it will lessen individual aggression and violence. While long-term exposure to media violence can disrupt an individual’s learning processes, resulting in the acquisition of lasting aggressive tendencies, and may magnify “aggression-supporting beliefs”. Anderson et al. (2003) state that there have been extensive longitudinal studies that support the link between repeated exposure to media violence as a child with aggressive traits later in adulthood. In extreme cases, this can attributed to physical assaults and spousal violence. Although, this is not the case for ever individual who is repeatedly exposed to media violence as a child. Personality traits and characteristics of individuals, social environments, and media content can impact the severity in which media violence may affect a person’s threshold for aggression (Anderson et al.,