Violence in the media has become inescapable. Everywhere you look, a new violent headline or topic will be spread around, and experts in psychology are becoming worried as more people gain access to this content. These experts have been conducting experiments and collecting research to see how violent media can affect people, especially more impressionable children, and their behaviors.
People have been noticing correlations between watching or reading violent media and concerning behavior. In a time when children have more unsupervised internet access than ever, these statistics are worrying. The effects of watching violent media include increased paranoia, increased aggression towards others, and desensitization. These effects sometimes remain when the children become teenagers, and even when they enter adulthood.
Paranoia can be a serious detriment to someone’s daily life. It can lead to a poor social life, due to their lack of trust. Symptoms include being easily offended, always defensive, finding it difficult to forgive others, believing they’re in constant danger, and believing in wild conspiracy theories. Paranoia is a dangerous thing, and some of the leading causes include witnessing traumatic events and violent or disturbing media.
Increased aggression toward others may start tame; they won’t immediately jump to physical violence or murderous thoughts. It may be something small, such as being in a bad mood or yelling, but this can quickly spiral out of control and lead to violent thoughts or actions. According to the National Library of Medicine, over 25% of people who were exposed to violent media were more aggressive as adults, with some of them doing things such as committing crimes or abusing their spouse. Experts believe this is their way of coping with what they have witnessed, and they’re taking out their negative feelings on people around them.
Desensitization is a psychological term related to a treatment or process that diminishes emotional responsiveness to a negative or aversive stimulus after repeated exposure. Desensitization often comes from witnessing traumatic events, and violent media is a leading cause. Being desensitized at a young age leads to a weaker response to the pain or suffering of
people around them, which ultimately causes them to feel less compassion for others when they grow up.
Violent video games have also been a topic of concern. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), over 97% of people between the ages of 12-18 play video games, and popular games such as “Grand Theft Auto” include violence and even encourage it. Younger people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions are influenced by the things and ideas around them, and experts have been concerned about how video games could affect them. There have been multiple attempts over the past 20 years to ban violent video games, but none of these ever succeeded due to officials believing that the jump from violence in games to violence in real life was too extreme.
Exposure to violent media can have serious effects on one’s mental health, and people have to be careful about the things they take part in and watch. Staying safe online and offline is always your first priority.
