The mainstream media and social media are full of violence and it has been increasing over time in proportions that are worrying. It is estimated that the average American watches about five hours of video a day and about 98% of them watch on traditional television (Meeus et al., 2018). Psychologists say that television and films have distorted reality and most of the youths who watch fiction movies that promote violence live in a fictional world which then become their reality.
I think that watching violence on TV and films encourage youths to be antisocial and aggressive because of the way those behaviors are depicted and rewarded in those platforms. Scholars argue that, if young children at the stage of learning are exposed to such content, they are vulnerable to being aggressive and antisocial. After viewing the violent movies, youths tend to mimic the behaviors which is a form of observational learning. Studies show that humans and primates tend to mimic what they observe others do. Violent videos act as a stimulus that causes the arousal of emotions (Anderson et al., 2017). Continued exposure to emotionally activating videos in TVs and films may lead to desensitization whereby a person develops habituation of some natural emotional reactions.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Youths who spend a lot of time watching violent movies on TVs and films are unable to adopt other people’s perspective and do not have the opportunity for cognitive de-centering and have reduced egocentric bias. Therefore, they do not have an understanding of other people’s worries, feeling, purposes, needs, or needs. Such people are unable to know the direct consequences of their actions and hence have antisocial conduct. For example, in Columbine High School in Colorado, two teenage boys killed 12 schoolmates, a teacher, and then injured 21 students before killing themselves. It was revealed that their lives revolved around violent video games. An investigation by the FBI and psychologists involved in the case found out that the boys were mentally ill with Eric Harris being a psychopath while Dylan Klebold suicidal and also depressive (Meeus et al., 2018). The causal factor for that may have been their obsession with violence they witnessed the videos.
References
Meeus, A., Beyens, I., Geusens, F., Sodermans, A. K., & Beullens, K. (2018). Managing positive and negative media effects among adolescents: Parental mediation matters—But not always. Journal of Family Communication , 18 (4), 270-285.
Anderson, C. A., Bushman, B. J., Bartholow, B. D., Cantor, J., Christakis, D., Coyne, S. M., ... & Huesmann, R. (2017). Screen violence and youth behavior. Pediatrics , 140 (Supplement 2), S142-S147.
