How Does Media Violence Affect the Children?
Public interest to violence in television has been manifest since the early 1950s. In this era, it has so far become more violent, aggressive, and sadistic. Media Entertainment is now United States’ biggest export, it is a huge business. In 2001, people around the world spent US$14 billion going to the movies to watch action movies. The U.S. domestic box office alone hit US$9 billion and it has made huge revenues from home video/DVD sales, music, rentals and spin-off retail. Video games are not far behind; global sales for 2002 were anticipated to be US$31 billion (“The Business of Media Violence”). The media producers found that marketing violence the action movies is a profitable and marketable business. Action movies rely on fights, killings, special effects and explosions to hold their audiences. Thus, we take it for granted that today our media is facing an immense predicament of violence which causes a brutal devastation to children behaviors.
By distorting reality, consuming violence on television has caused three social effects that may maneuver the children’s mentality, like aggression, fear, and other stereotypical attitudes, and the desensitization of children (Psychiatric Times, 2006). As we see the aggression in children is the more often they watch a movie that contains violence, they may tend to behave more violently. Moreover, violence may mislead the viewers’ way of thinking, provoking the viewers to solve their problems by using the belief of violence. Video games are one of the ways in which media violence can get to children’s reach. For example, game titles like: Street fighter, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, World War, Grand Theft Auto, Blade of Darkness, Alien vs. Predator, The Simpsons, contain acts of violence. In the case of fear, children may tend to become paranoid. They get scared and feel insecure of the world around them. The last and maybe the most profound effect that television has on children is desensitization; watching too much materials of violence the person becomes less sensitive to certain acts of violence, they themselves capable to become more violent individuals.
Scientists want to have a more convincing result in their research and so nowadays, they are doing more studies on the connection between media violence and juvenile misbehavior. There is an increase from 3% to 15% in individuals aggressive behavior after watching violent television (Cesarone, 1994). With this statistic, we can say that watching violence movies may lead to the increase in juvenile crime in the society. Nonetheless, violence also may result from many different aspects including family settings, cultural, environmental, and belief. For that reason, television, movies, and video games are not the primary causes for acts of violence and other crimes committed by kids.
There are many proofs and evidence in real life which shows that media violence can affect