Violence in the Media Can Create Violent

¶ … violence in the media can create violent behavior in children and teens. Many studies show that watching violent media, such as video games, films, and even the television news can cause violent behavior in children and teens, and that behavior can continue into adulthood.

Several different studies have indicated that violence in the media can produce violent and aggressive behavior in children and teens. Two researchers note, "In the past decade, media-effects researchers have progressively reached consensus that exposure to television violence can result in aggressive behavior" (Greene & Krcmar, 2005). In addition, a fifteen-year study by the American Psychological Association (APA) also showed that both men and women are affected by media violence, and that adults who watched this media as children tended to be more violent, and convicted of more violent crimes (Partenheimer, 2003). In the past decade, violence has become much more common in the media, as well, and adults and children alike seem to be more immune to it. Children and teens are exposed to violence on television, in films, in video games, and other media, and society seems to be getting more permissive about how much violence occurs in the media. All of this is having an effect on violence in the nation's young people.

All of this violence in the media indicates that some types of people enjoy this violence and seek it out. Viewing this violence leads to different behaviors in different people. For example, violent films lead to verbal aggressiveness, or bullying, in children and teens. The two researchers continue, "Our findings suggest that verbal aggressiveness is positively related to violent movie and horror movie exposure, as predicted. Furthermore, argumentativeness is positively related to violent movie exposure, real crime television exposure and violent television exposure" (Greene & Krcmar, 2005). Since children and teens often view these types of programs, violence becomes more natural to them, and they see violence as a way to conquer their problems and make them feel better about themselves.

There is also much more violence in children's television shows than many parents may realize. The editors of an anti-violence Web site note, "61% of children's television programs contain violence and only 4% have an anti-violence theme. In programs with violence only 16% showed long-term consequences, 45% of the offenders went unpunished" (Editors, 2009). Children and teens often do not understand the real consequences of violence because of these types of shows, and so they are more prone to become violent because they do not understand the realities of violence on others.