Media Violence

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Everyone wonders why children are so aggressive today. One of the factors may be the high viewing of media violence and the imitations of the media. Imitation is how human beings learn, so if children and adolescent act out the violence they see on the video games and TV, they are most likely to use these learned aggressions on others. Media plays a huge part of society. What can be entertainment like TV and Video games to youth; can also be a threat to them. “Super Mario Brothers, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Street Fighter are familiar names to nearly all of us. They are all best selling games of major video game consoles. Over 9.8 billion dollars were spent on video games in the United States during 2001 alone, and video game consoles are present in 36 million homes in the United States “(Schlimme). Henry Jenkins a MIT professor shares his thoughts on how he feel the accessibility of video games has led to an outbreak of youth violence. On the PBs website he shares: According to federal crime statistics, the rate of juvenile violent crime in the United States is at a 30-year low. Researchers find that people serving time for violent crimes typically consume less media before committing their crimes than the average person in the general population. It's true that young offenders who have committed school shootings in America have also been game players. But young people in general are more likely to be gamers — 90 percent of boys and 40 percent of girls play. The overwhelming majority of kids who play do NOT commit antisocial acts. According to a 2001 U.S. Surgeon General's report, the strongest risk factors for school shootings centered on mental stability and the quality of home life, not media exposure. The moral panic over violent video games is doubly harmful. It has led adult authorities to be more suspicious and hostile to many kids who already feel cut off from the system. It also misdirects energy away from eliminating the actual causes of youth violence...
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