Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Violent video game effects on children and adolescents
Violent video games influence on youth
Influence of mass media on younger generation pdf
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Media Violence and the Effects on Youth
“The more children see of violence, the more numb they are to the deadly consequences of violence. Now, video games like ‘Mortal Kombat,’ ‘Killer Instinct,’ and ‘Doom,’ the very game played obsessively by the two young men who ended so many lives in Littleton, make our children more active participants in simulated violence” (“Quotes: Media Violence”). These are the words of former President Bill Clinton, just days after the tragic Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colorado. The shooters, seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, aged 18 and 17 respectively, murdered 13 people and seriously injured 23 others before turning their guns on themselves (Anderson and Bushman 353). They were both believed to have enjoyed playing the video game ‘Doom’, and created a setting for the shooting that was rather like the game. This has sparked a debate on media violence and the effects it has on children and today’s youth. The idea that media violence has potentially harmful effects has been analyzed for quite a long time, and many agreements have been reached on several of the issues it creates. It is not just violent video games that have effects on children, but any kind of violent media, like television, news, books, music, and others. The average young person will have viewed a projected 200,000 deeds of violence on television alone, by only the age of 18 (“Media Violence”). Violence in the media leads to violence in today’s youth by increasing their aggressive behavior, affecting their cognition, and decreasing their pro-social behavior.
Media violence does increase youth’s aggressive behavior. Of all the research done on media violence and the effects it has on young people, there has bee...
... middle of paper ...
.../study.pdf>.
Berger, Gilda. "Television and Violence." Violence and the media. New York: F. Watts, 1989. .
Print.
Huesmann, L., and Jessica Moise-Titus. "Longitudinal Relations Between Children’s Exposure
to TV Violence and Their Aggressive and Violent Behavior in Young Adulthood: 1977–1992." Developmental Psychology. American Psychological Association, Inc, 1 Jan. 2003. Web. 5 Apr. 2014. .
Huesmann, L., and Laramie Taylor. "The Role of Media Violence in Violent Behavior." Annual
Reviews Public Health. Annual Reviews, 1 Jan. 2006. Web. 4 Apr. 2014. .
"Media Violence." Media Violence. American Academy of Pediatrics, 19 Oct. 2009. Web. 5
Apr. 2014. .
Dylan Klebold, Eric Harris, Adam Lanza, Steven Phillip Kazmierczak, and Seung-Hui Cho all have a few things in common, they are all school shooters that have killed and injured a combined total of 149 human beings and are or were believed to be avid violent video game players, who also committed suicide immediately after carrying out their attacks. To the public, school shooters seem to share a direct connection to playing violent video games and that playing them leads to violent behavior. Violent videogames have become a highlight in the media and national debate for this very reason but, there is no scientific evidence to support the existence of a causative connection between participants of violent videogames manifesting violent behaviors. The media provides biased information that misleads citizens into believing that said link is well established and accepted. I argue that parents should make responsible and well informed decisions in regards to their child’s videogame activities in spite of the lack of scientific research.
Eron, L.D., Huesmann, L.R., Lefkowitz, M.M. & Walder, L.O. (1972). Does television violence cause aggression? American Psychologist, 27, 253-263.
Leo, John. "The Amount of Violence on Television Has Been Exaggerated." Media Violence: Opposing Viewpoints. Ed. William Dudley. San Diego: Greenhaven, 1999.
The shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado killing thirteen students and teachers shocked the world. “They were video gamers who seemed to be acting out some dark digital fantasy. It was as if all that exposure to computerized violence gave them the idea to go on a rampage – or at least fueled their urges” (Carey 1). The shooters of this incident learned their deadly skills from video games. Seventy percent of children ages eight to eighteen have access to violent video games at their home. “Boys who play Teen or Mature-rated games for a minimum of 40 minutes a day may witness over 180 incidents of aggression per day, or 5,400 incidents per month”(Smith, S.L., Lachlan, K.A., & Tamborini, R). Children that play violent video games at such a young age and experiencing such violent actions will start to increase in aggressive thoughts, feelings, and aggressive behavior.
When families sit down to watch television, they expect to watch family type of shows. Family type shows meaning rated PG or PG13, sitcoms and movies that do not include weapons, killing, foul language, and non-socially accepted actions. When children killing, they start to believe that it is accepted. Do children think that killing and hurting others and themselves have little meaning to the real life, children can become traumatized. Most killers or violators of the law blame their behavior on the media, and the way that television portrays violators. Longitudinal studies tracking viewing habits and behavior patterns of a single individual found that 8-year-old boys, who viewed the most violent programs growing up, were the most likely to engage in aggressive and delinquent behavior by age 18 and serious criminal behavior by age 30 (Eron, 1). Most types of violence that occur today links to what people see on television, act out in video games or cyberspace games, or hear in music. Media adds to the violence that exists today and in the past few decades. It will continue in the future if it is not recognized as a possible threat to our society. When kids go to a movie, watch television, play video games or even surf the web, they become part of what they see and hear. Soaking violence in their heads long enough becomes a part of the way they think, acts, and live. The line between pretend and reality gets blurred.
Media Violence and its negative impact has been discussed and debated for many years As children grow into teens they encounter as vast amount of violence in the media, negatively impacting today’s youth. Teenagers who are exposed to media violence will fail to develop effective socialization strategies and resort more readily to violence, which makes society a more dangerous place.
One of the first steps to changing our gun culture is to take gun violence out of the media. Kids are exposed to violence in television, video games and movies everyday. Dr Norman B Anderson of the American Psychological Association says there was a link between Adam Lanza’s (the gunman of the Sandy Hook shooting) violent video game obsession and his killing spree that cost far too many innocent lives. A study done at Brock University showed children and teens who played violent video games over a long period of time showed increased development of aggressive behaviors. This goes without saying that there must be a decrease of violence in the media. The kids watching violence on television are the future of society. They cannot all be aggressive, violent people who believe that shooting civilians is okay or stealing cars is something to take lightly. We must change this by
American Psychological Association. "Violence on Television. What Do Children Learn? What Can Parents Do?" APA Online. www.apa.org/publicinfo/violence.html. Accessed October 23, 2001.
There is no doubt that the media can spin a story into a shocking and scary account produced solely with the intent to sell. This information, force-fed to the public, can cause fear and hatred to develop within our country and result in gun violence and bloodshed. One reason for the amount of youth violence in America is the violent content in many video games. The average adolescent spends a major part of the normal week watching or interacting with some form of the media’s products. Video games are one of these media-based mediums and have become increasingly popular since the 1980’s.
Society has been bombarded with violence from the beginning of time. These concerns about violence in the media have been around way before television was even introduced. Nevertheless, there have been numerous studies, research, and conferences done over the years on television, but the issue still remains. Researchers do acknowledge that violence portrayed on television is a potential danger. One issue is clear though, our focus on television violence should not take attention away from other significant causes of violence in our country such as: drugs, inadequate parenting, availability of weapons, unemployment, etc. It is hard to report on how violent television effects society, since television affects different people in different ways. There is a significant problem with violence on television that we as a society are going to have to acknowledge and face.
Fisher, Deborah A. "Television Violence Contributes to Aggressive Behavior in Young People." 2007. Opposing Viewpoints. .
A widely accepted cause of the murders committed by children is violence in the media. The parents of three students killed at a high school in Padukah, Kentucky filed a $130 million lawsuit against the entertainment industry because they believe that violence in the media inspired the boy, Michael Carneal, who killed their children ("Media"). To some extent, these parents are correct in their assumption. On average, children watch television 16 to 17 hours per week, beginning as early as age 2 (Strasburger 129). Furthermore, when video games are added, some teenagers may spend as many as 35 to 55 hours per week in front of the television set (Straburger 129). Within these many hours of television viewing, there are many violent scenes. The National Television Viole...
The regularity and asperity of media violence has dramatically increased over the years. The Media exists in almost every aspect of people’s lives and exposure to violence in the media is becoming a large concern. People are exposed violent acts in the media everyday between video games, movies, and television. Parents are distressed over the fact tha...
Television violence is also a cause of both violent and aggressive behavior in teenage boys. According to the evidence in a study done by Turner, Hesse, and Peterson-Lewis, it was concluded that watching television violence had a long-term increase in aggression in boys (Hough 1). In addition to this study, Dr. William A. Belson evaluated fifteen hundred boys, aged thirteen to sixteen years, and he determined that boys with heavy television exposure are more likely to commit violent acts than other boys (Langone 51). In Belson’s study, he discovered that the effect of each violent act on television was collective, and over time, Belson discovered that the boys engaged in many aggressive acts, including painting graffiti, breaking windows, aggressive play, swearing, and threatening other boys with violence (Kinnear 26).
With the explosion of technology today, access to the media is at your fingertips, anytime, anywhere, and almost 24/7. Video games, movies, cartoons, daily news, websites, music videos, and even in commercials, violence is everywhere, and it becomes harder and harder to avoid. Violence in the media has been increasing and reaching dangerous proportions. According to Report of the Media Violence Commission, the effects are remarkably consistent regardless of type of medium, age, gender, or where the person lives in the world (336). Many studies and researches reveal the empirical evidence that links violence in movies and television shows to aggressive behavior in children, teenagers, and adults. Increasing aggressive behavior, desensitization to violence, and fear are three types of negative effects contributed to by violence in movies and television shows. The article, “The Influence of Media Violence on Youth” emphasizes that violent television shows, films, and music reveal unequivocal evidence that media violence increases the likelihood aggressive and violent behavior in both immediately, and in the long term (Anderson, Craig A., 81). Violence now has gone into the mainstream. The Hunger Games, one of the top grossing films in 2013 replete with blood, gore and violence. The Walking Dead was once voted highest-rated entertainment program on TV with horrific violent scenes, killing from stabbing into the heads, bloody corpses, and disturbing, haunting images shown in most of the scenes. CBS’ Criminal Minds is television show with series of scary scenarios showing the violent murders of psychopath people. Worst of all, Silence of the Lambs deals with a psychopath who ...