Violent Media And The Aggressive Generation

A ponderous medium of media is video games in co-relation to violence. Video games encourage violent behavior in children as they are at a crucial stage of adaptation.

When it comes to the topic of violent media, some of us would readily agree it’s a controversial subject as to whether kids should or shouldn’t be exposed to it. This is because many children who view violent media react negatively rather than not being affected at all. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of what effects does it have on children. Whereas some are convinced that it is a healthy alternative for kids to express themselves, others maintain that it causes kids to become more aggressive and contributes to juvenile crimes.

(1).The problem is that in the last four decades, the government and the public health amassed an impressive body of evidence identifying the impact of media violence on children. Since 1969, when President [Lyndon] Johnson formed the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, the body of data has effectively grown and grown and it leads to an unambiguous and virtually unanimous conclusion: media violence contributes to

So how is it that it is the fault of video game violence that makes juveniles violent? As much as media coverage will have people think the “wave of violence gripping America’s youth” (Grossman), the truth is violent attacks in America’s schools are “extremely rare events. The odds that a child will die in school through murder or suicide are less than one in one million” (Olson). Increase in news reports about crime just end up raising viewers’ perception of risk, whether or not there is actual danger (Olson).

Additionally, although violent video games might expose children to violent behavior, the amount of violence are not as great as the ones in movies and television. The news is filled with stories of war and murder, and nearly every movie contains some forms of violence. Plus, these two media are different from games in a very important way because they involve real people, not computer-generated characters. One of the social psychological science faculties in

This could be opening the doors to a plethora of other cases and assumptions that can lead to our youth potentially becoming killers. Research was conducted on the exposure of television violence and its effects on kids, organizations like the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association and the Academy of Pediatrics have concluded that there is a cause and effect relationship amongst those exposed. However, such studies does not demonstrate that media violence causes aggressive behavior, only that the two phenomena exist together (207). This finding was used to make the assumption that it would likely be the case with video games.

In their research of violent videogames and the effect on children, they have found that “the simplistic belief that exposure to media violence will lead directly to individual violence is clearly wrong.” (Kutner, Olsen, 2008) I am going to ask you to look deeper than this. I assert that although violent video games are thought to encourage real world violence, they actually help to prevent it.

In Grand Theft Auto, you run a round picking up jobs in an imaginary city. These jobs range from killing union workers to stealing pricy automobiles. In Conker’s Bad Fur day, you play as a playful cartoon squirrel that drinks beer and urinates on the enemy to defeat him. In the Journal of the American Medical Association, 90% of the games played today actually reward the player to injure another person and these were the games rated Teen. These types of gratuitous violence portrayed in video games transfer over into the everyday lives of these children. Studies of children exposed to violence have shown that they can become: “immune” or numb to the horror of violence, imitate the violence they see, and show more aggressive behavior the more they’re exposed to violence. Some children accept violence as a way to handle problems. Studies have also shown that the more realistic and repeated the exposure to violence, the greater the impact on children. For instance, a child in Kentucky ended up bringing a revolver to school and shot 8 students. Police ended up pin-pointing the source to the video games the child had been playing. The child ended up raking in more than 10,000 hours of a shoot em’ up style game that rewarded bonus points for headshots.

“On the other hand, considering a specific violent video game may have the reverse effect and actually reduce perceptions of negative effects if it is difficult to generate arguments for negative effects of the specific game” (Ivory, Kalyanaraman 4). Although you may believe that violent video games increase the youth violence rates, in actuality some violent video games can have separate effects on youth depending on the child for instance, one child could become more violent whereas another child will not have the urge to be violent.

“Head shot! That guy was destroyed!” These are just some examples of the dialogue spoken between children who play video games like “Call of Duty” or “Halo.” Children brag about the number of people they have killed in these games. Playing violent video games may cause children to act violently. First, violent video games train players to act aggressively by repeatedly killing an enemy over and over. Second, children mimic what they see, whether it’s in real life or on a video screen. Third, being exposed to the violent behaviors of the game, dead bodies, and blood, make the players insensitive to violence. Because the violence from video games affects the behavior of children, violent video games should not be available for purchase by anyone under age eighteen.

“Recent contents analyses of video games show that many as 89% of games contain some violent contents” (Gentile, Lynch, Linder, Walsh 3). More than half of video games being sold around the world contain some form of violence. All of the violence involved in the video games being played by children is a pattern leading to aggression. Aggression can be caused by many things; however, violent video games are the main cause of aggression in young adults. “If a child began playing violent video games at a young age, then he might think that violence in real life is the same as the game violence and that it doesn’t have a real impact on others” (Gilad, Alto 1). Thinking that violence in the virtual world is the same as in the real world is the first step to showing aggression. Aggression in children caused by video games is the biggest effect parents and researchers worry about. Violent video games teach children that shooting and killing people are

Initially the purpose of violent media is to entertain people. However, its content encourages violence and teaches how to enjoy cruelty. When playing video games, players must kill another human being to score. The more time they spent on it, the more they familiarize themselves to brutality. As it can be addictive, it also detaches players from human contact, which leads to lack of empathy. As a result, players will have difficulty to differentiate fantasy from reality and start dreaming about killing and scoring in real life. That’s why most school shooters are great video gamers. I will support my thesis with evidences and quotes from expertise.

As evidence has shown, children view many violent scenes while watching television, movies, or playing video games, but the question still remains: What psychological effect does violence in the media have on children? Research over the past 10 years has consistently shown that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between media violence and real-life aggression (Strasburger 129). Violence in the media can lead to aggressive behavior by children and teenagers who watch the various programs. Of course, not all children who watch television, or movies, or play video games develop aggressive behavior. However, there is a strong correlation between media violence and aggressive behavior. A study, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry, examined how children's television viewing practices are related to aggressive behaviors. The results revealed that children who reported watching greater amounts of television per day had higher levels of violent behavior than children who reported lesser amounts of television viewing (Singer 1041). Witnessing violence is an important determining factor in violent behavior. The media serves as a means for children to witness violence. According to Bandura's Social Learning Theory, children imitate behavior that they see on television, especially if the person performing the behavior is attractive or if the

TV heroes endorse tanks of noxious,flesh-eating gas The complex age of elaborate laptops, portable color televisions in every room, and pocket radios the size of a basic calculator have all taken their toll on American society. In a furious outburst reflecting the contemporary society in which we live, television has come to represent all that is evil and wicked for our children. Through gruesome, explicit, and often unrealistic portrayals of death and violence, the impressionable clay of our children's minds are being molded into vicious statues incapable of comprehending the gap between what is real and what is injurious. What you see is what you get has taken on an all too terrifying

In the book Critique of Violence ,author Walter describes Violence as "The intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, male development, or deprivation .The violence that is portrayed in the media has been debated for decades ,and it has rose a question about how does it influence the youth?. From movies to video games society has been accustom to seeing violence in their everyday entertainment. Since children are easy to be influence by their environment, it is safe to say that violence in the media can and will contribute to violent behavior.