Further extending the application of the stimulus-response model, it can also be argued that weapons such as guns are being heavily associated with numerous components of flight simulators such as killing. Weapons such as guns are associated with the feeling of being able to kill or assault the enemy in the video game. Unfortunately, these interest or passion for weapons is oftentimes also associated with real life weapons. To prove, news of children playing guns or accidentally firing real guns are nothing new today. Just early this year, two-eight-year-old boys uncovered a gun and fired into the playground (see Pierce & Stoltz, 2009).
Statement 5
The fifth statement of this assignment is brief but very meaningful and insightful. It simply says, "Don't just stand there…do something."
I have learned that to some extent the issue of media violence and children exposure to them has become mundane to most of us. Some even tend to associate aggressive media with the gender socialization of male children.
Violent programming is something that has been a part of our childhood that we tend to neglect them. Consequently, we become less critical of them. This opens me to the pervasiveness of media violence. Even if it is already widely known that exposure to violent media affects child development, the efforts to condemn them are rather measly. This also opens me to the fact that media, toys, or video games are crucial transmitters of certain values that we have to constantly keep an eye on.
Given these counter-productive effect of media to children, I have listed several ways on how...
Firstly, we have to be very aware of the media influences of our children. It is ideal that we watch television programs with them in order to monitor the things that are being exposed to them. Remember that the development stage of children can actually determine their future behavior. Secondly, we have to be able to explain to the child some areas of differences between what s/he sees in various forms of media and what happens in real life in order for them to reject the formation of unhealthy fantasies or bad character identification. Third, we need to take a proactive stance in the development of our children. As the statement goes, we can't just sit and watch how various social influences destroy our child's healthy formation. And lastly, we should be able to instill core values to our children by providing them a strong foundation of what is acceptable and not. Positive and negative reinforcement, among many other behavioral modification strategies, can be used to achieve such goals.
References
Heusmann L.R. et al. (2003). Longitudinal Relations between Children's Exposure to TV
Violence and their Aggressive and Violent Behavior in Young Adulthood:
1977-1992. Retrieved from http://www.lsa.umich.edu/psych/news/spotlight/spotlight/?id=70 on Sept. 29, 2009.
Kring, a.M. et al. (2007). Abnormal Psychology 10th Edition. Massachussets: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Pierce, J. & Stoltz, G. (2009). Two guns found under classroom at Gold Coast school.
Retrieved from http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25007452-3102,00.html on Sept. 29, 2009.
