A little something I wrote in High School.
It’s apparent that the media has an influence on human sexuality, but another frightening concept we often overlook is media perpetuated violence. There is an old saying that states, “*** sells,” and these statement holds true in American society, but violence is also a variable that captivates the minds of Americans. Corporations prosper from America’s addiction with violence and continue this trend by flooding the market with violent material. Unfortunately, this violent mind set also impacts the younger generation. Children are frequently exposed to violent material such as video games and cartoons, which contain massive amounts of violence. For example, in the article, “Cartoon Violence,” by Iain M. Gulin, he explains the amount of violence found in cartoons, “The cartoon "Zipping Along," featuring Warner Brothers' Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner, is a cartoon which contains 22 separate acts of violence, and is a mere 7 minutes in length.” (Gulin) Cartoons have severe psychological affects on children that often desensitizes children to violence. After repeatedly watching cartoons that contain violent material, the line between reality and fiction become blurred. Children take into consideration that the rules in reality no longer apply, and variables such as death, laws of physics, and rules of reality no longer apply after watching a mere 7 minutes of footage. This is just the effects of short term exposure to violent material, and if a child is bombarded with violent material on a regular bases, the child will have a higher probability of becoming a violent individual.
In addition, another popular source of entertainment children resolve to is video games. Video games have eclipsed the world of violent entertainment and captivated the minds of the younger generation. Because of its highly violent and interactive game play, individuals become highly immersed and addicted to these video games. For example, the American Psychological Association's conducted a study on the ill-effects of video games, “Playing violent video games like Doom, Wolfenstein 3D or Mortal Kombat can increase a person's aggressive thoughts, feelings and behavior both in laboratory settings and in actual life.” As technological advancements progress, video games become increasing lifelike, and at times difficult to distinguish the difference between reality and game play. In result, individuals become so engulfed in the game play that their instinctual reflexes and emotions are integrated in the experience. After long term exposure, gamers begin to posses the properties of a sponge and absorb all the negative messages the video games deliver. In fact, many psychologists have developed a theory connecting the Columbine shooting and the assailants to the negative influences of video games. Yet video game developers still persist, and create more realistic, violent, and provocative games every year. However, these corporations aren’t creating violent video games to corrupt the youth, but with sales bring in record sales of $5.8 billion a year, corporations can’t help but produce these video games. It’s just good business, nothing personal.
