Benjamin Eldridge

Sociology

February 3, 2016

Mass Media

In the age old debate of mass media effecting children, and young adults with violent

thoughts and behaviors, I would have to say that yes, I believe mass media does have a strong

impact on cultural attitudes and behaviors for the worse. Many people contribute video games,

violent television shows, and movies along with social media to the behavioral changes of young

adults and to the never-ending growth of violent peoples. While there is many facts on both sides

of the debate, I believe that social media and video games are a key result in the advancement of

violent acts and violence in general.

Starting with video games, which now are all starting on the violence theme are

outstandingly a large deal to many teenagers. Teenagers enjoy playing video games, it is just who

they are and nobody could stop them. Many of the more violent games are rated mature, and

only 17 year olds and older can purchase these. It may seem hard to get your hands on a violent

video game with that placement on them, but what stops kids from asking their parents or older

friends to get the game for them? Nothing. These kids can get their hands on any violent video

game they want, and these games feature a large array of violence and criminal behavior. From

titles such as Grand Theft Auto which features prostitution, gang affiliations, rape, and non-stop

violence and murder for the players enjoyment can easily alter the players perception on

violence. The kids who play this game will see that they can do all these things in a game, so

why cant they do it in real life, what is stopping them? They practice these violent and criminal
acts mostly every time they put the game on and play it, and it alters their behavior and adjusts

them to see how fun it is to murder anybody who crosses them and have no bad results toward

their decisions in the game. Video games are making mass shootings seem fun to the

psychopaths who conduct them, as they play video games and to them what they do while killing

people who are alive is a fantasy and just a game to them. The 2 teenage boys who murdered

12 schoolmates and a teacher and injured 21 others at Columbine High School in Colorado

before killing themselves, he said, lived in a pathological environment. Their lives centered

around violent video games (Tanay 2015). As a result of nonstop gaming, teenagers and young

adults are prone to the idea that killing other people wont do any harm and they themselves are

invincible and can die and just respawn as they do in the video games they play.

These video games also deteriorate the female figure in many ways. They push the

female persona to be that females are only sexual objects. Back to the Grand Theft Auto series,

females are used as prostitutes, hookers, and other sexual demeaning objects. As the women in

the video game series are constantly beaten, killed, and used as sexual objects constantly it can

shove the idea to the games players that females are nothing more but items used for sex and

fun. It alters the general idea of women and can change the sexual behavior of men as they could

just see every women they pass by as a sexual object much like in the game itself. Another video

game series The Tomb Raider is a perfect example. From the video game series start the main

character, although a women and leading role, has strangely lost clothing and become more

attractive over the years. She has become more and more slutty since the first video game, and

why? So men will purchase the video game. This is solely another reason on how girls are sexual

objects or eye candy so men will buy the game and enjoy it more as they play as an attractive

female.
 Now turning to television You turn on the television, and violence is there. You go to a

movie, and violence is there, Tanay told Psychiatric Times. Reality is distorted. If you live in a

fictional world, then the fictional world becomes your reality (Tanay, 2015). Nowadays every

single movie and television series has violence in it, even many children ones. They show

violence as fun and games, nobody can get hurt. This can portray an idea that kids cant get hurt

and they may go out and try to do these same stunts that the characters in their favorite show did.

As kids watch shows more and more that have increasing violence, they may tune out the world

around them and grow fond of a violent lifestyle. Research by psychologists L. Rowell

Huesmann, Leonard Eron and others starting in the 1980s found that children who watched many

hours of violence on television when they were in elementary school tended to show higher

levels of aggressive behavior when they became teenagers. (APA.org 2014). With this in mind,

it makes sense that kids born since 1980 to now have increasingly bad behavioral characteristics

and are influenced by these shows.

Even social media has an effect on violence, more so emotional. While it may cowardly

to sit behind a computer screen and attack a fellow classmate or someone you do not even know,

social media has made it increasingly easy to bully over the internet. Nobody will go up to

someone elses face and start throwing words and hateful things towards them, but while sitting

behind a screen and not having to face that person, they can easily say whatever they want

because they arent in close contact with whomever theyre saying it to. Social media plays a big

impact on violence as people will make fun of others, and cause emotional damage to other

people constantly online. Some may even commit suicide due to the things people are doing or

saying to them.
 With the nowadays violence being portrayed in everyday life it is not just an idea, but

rather a fact that the mass media is influencing cultural attitudes and behaviors for the worse.

Children are easily influenced by what they see, if they watch a show such as Tom and Jerry

where the mouse and cat constantly attack each other, the child might attempt to hurt an animal

such as a cat because it was done in the show without any harm. People portray these actions to

personality and behavioral problems, when the real issue is that the violence in social media is

the real reason why teenagers growing up have behavioral issues and altered personalities and

ideas on violence. Mass media is one of the main reasons for increasing violent behavior and

influencing cultural attitudes and behaviors for the worse.

Kaplan, A. (n.d.). Violence in the Media: What Effects on Behavior? Retrieved

February 03, 2016, from http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/child-adolescent-

psychiatry/violence-media-what-effects-behavior