Negative Effects Of Media Violence On Youth

Abstract

This paper examines the negative effects of media violence imposed on younger generations. Numerous studies have been conducted information nowadays is extremely accessible to people via different kinds of platform especially with the internet and social media. People can share and communicate in the easiest way and fastest rate. Compared to the old days when people have to send mails back and forth, or only verbally expressing themselves over the phone, social media like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and WeChat, they are supposed to be a gift to the younger generations given by modern society. They provide graphic images, videos and even live-stream where you can watch people on their ongoing lives. However, it is not always a good thing. The media information is not filter, control and sometimes not even restricted by the ages. As information became more accessible, viewers are becoming more sensible and vulnerable to some negative and violent content.

Now with social media apps and internet platforms, information is overwhelming and flooded around you. There shows the problem that the media content is not probably filtered for every age or every group of viewers. Information can be implanted to viewers far deeper than just words on a piece of a letter or couple sentences over the phone which helps people learn faster and absorb easier. This kind of communication forms such a strong connection between the viewers and the people who make the video content. Each time you turn on your apps on your phone or open YouTube, they bring you the most trended and most viewed videos. Take an instance, YouTube is known for its massive number of videos and the looseness given to you the content creator to create their videos. People can upload anything they want on an acceptable range where it is not suited for every age. Sometimes I turn on my YouTube app, videos like UFC fighting and street fighting to pop out on the recommended list. Out of curiosity, people might want to click on it and watch what’s going on. Even though you might not ever go through videos like this, simply because such videos are trending and viewed the most at that moment. They show up on your recommended list. As an adult myself, I can decide on whether I should watch these videos and have clear ideas of how these videos would affect me. Younger kids in high school or even lower level students they not yet have the discernment for such content.

The primary principle among the younger generation is to live the way they want and act the way they want regardless of how others think about them. Be blithe and carefree. This may sound like a positive perspective on being your true self and not letting others interfere with your decision making, but on the other hand, it also can be interpreted as act carelessly and not take any advice from other people. I remember one of the most popular Youtuber whose name is Logan Paul did something awful and despicable last year. According to Aja Romano on this article “Logan Paul, and the toxic YouTube prank culture that created him, explained”, Logan Paul went up to the dead man who hung himself to end his own life in the suicide forest, and asked sneeringly “you, are you alive?” while his has camera focus on the man’s face. Then he laughed “Are you **** with us?” These were Logan Paul’s own words literally. They weren’t in any way of respect or empathy. Not only that he showed no moral to the man who chose to end his life, but Logan Paul also added a preface before uploading the video as “Buckle the **** up, because you’re never gonna see a video like this again!” He intentionally draws his viewers into watching this terrible content that he is proud of. The content of the video was neglected and passed by YouTube. The video was uploaded to YouTube and instantly became viral. It gains thousands of thousand views in an hour. A lot of people were traumatized and shocked. Some viewers realized how serious and horrible the content was only after people started a petition to ban Logan Paul from YouTube. According to Jesselyn Cook on her journal “1 Year After His Infamous ‘Suicide Forest’ Video, Logan Paul Is Bigger Than Ever”, even with more than 750,000 people signed the petition to ban Logan Paul from YouTube, he is still around until now because most of his viewers justified his action by making excuses like his laughter was just a way to cope with that, or the dead man should not hang himself there at the first place. Considering that Logan has more than 17 million of viewer, the influences he brought onto his generation or the younger generation is huge. It is awful to know that most of these 17 million kids would also have no respect for the dead people and find a way to justify such despicable action. Throwing plates to the wall just to express his unsatisfactory, making pranks on people with aggression, sudden shouting on the streets were Logan’s daily routines and his viewers’ treat for the day.

Making other people uncomfortable does not consider a bad thing to these viewers anymore. Young people tend to be influenced easier when they are exposed to contents with negativity and violence. According to Eugene V. Beresin in his article “media violence and youth”, TV shows for children programs display 8 to 12 violent acts per hour. By the time when children become young teens from the age of 12 to 16, they would witness approximately 20,000 acts of violence in their entire youth. Two out of three children who were exposed to physical and verbal violence will imitate the actions they have learned from the show. Moreover, Beresin found that the homicide rate in the United States has dramatically increased 93 percent after the introduction of television and films. The rate is nearly double because of the spread of violent graphics and images. Young people in their early teenage years are most likely to adopt both good and bad influences. If negativity and violence are implanted to them before they have the ability to distinguish what’s good and bad, they would easily imitate the action they have learned from what they have seen. According to Elizabeth J. Erwin in her article “Exposure to Media Violence and Young Children with and without Disabilities: powerful opportunities for family-professional partnerships”, children under the age of eight do no possess the ability the discriminate the reality and fantasy. Age of eight is still the time for children to develop emotionally and cognitively, therefore they are likely to imitate the act to form a connection to the real world.

Further, she states that media violence gave children a false sense that violence is an acceptable and efficient way to solve problems. At younger ages, when children do not have good control of temper and a better understanding of conflicts, violence is usually the way to express our anger. For example, a young boy would throw his toy to the ground if he does not know how to play with it; he would break up and scatter the pieces of a puzzle when he gets mad for not completing it. Young kids tend to show aggression toward troubles. If they grow up watching all these negative content on TV and social media, they would have adopted such a way of expressing anger or unsatisfactory. In addition to the film, internet, media apps that impose negative effects on young children. Video games play the biggest role in implanting children with violence. According to Luca Milani in his article “violent video games and children’s aggressive behaviors: An Italian study”, more than two-thirds of 6 to 17-year-old Italians and 16 to 19-year-old European teenagers play games with violent role-playing. These games mostly contain acts of killing enemies or robbing others to grow on yourself. This kind of game is known as RPG (Role-playing game). By putting yourself into character and control the role to kill enemies, you will obtain experience and rewards to grow stronger.

For example, games like Fortnite, PUBG (player unknown’s Battlegrounds) feature in killing off the rest of the players with guns or knives to win the final prize. PUBG is a game that imitates real-life battleground with fire sound and real-life three-dimensional visuals. It is easy for young kids to mix up real life and video games. When they are used to use violence in the game, they may do the same thing in real life. I believe video games have a greater influence on children than other media platforms in terms of violence. Because video games are controlled by the children as they are deciding to kill off enemies with the gun or knife in their character’s hand. The TV may only create visual images for children to remember whereas video games can allow children to act on their own. Media violence is spread through too many platforms nowadays. They are extremely accessible and highly tolerated by modern society. Videos like lighting random things on fire and throwing plates to express unsatisfactory that Logan Paul made daily, shouldn’t be allowed to upload all the time to YouTube or other media platform. TV shows such as cartoons and children's programs should be limited for their playtime in a day to prevent too much screen time for children. Video games with violence features should charge playtime fees like World of Warcraft to prevent young kids from playing it. Teenagers with violent issues have become a growing concern of the community. To fix the problem to its core, we must fix it from the source.

References

1. Beresin, E. (1999). Media Violence and Youth. Academic Psychiatry, 23(2), 111-114. doi: 10. 1007/bf03354254 Cook, J. (2019, January 9).
2. 1 Year After His Infamous 'Suicide Forest' Video, Logan Paul Is Bigger Than Ever. Retrieved from https://www. huffpost. com/entry/logan-paul-1-year- suicide-forest_n_5c2e9b92e4b05c88b70798f5.
3. Erwin, E. , & Morton, N. (2008). Exposure to Media Violence and Young Children with and Without Disabilities: Powerful Opportunities for Family-Professional Partnerships. Early Childhood Education Journal, 36(2), 105-112. doi: 10. 1007/s10643-008-0276-x
4. Milani, L. , Camisasca, E. , Caravita, S. C. S. , Ionio, C. , Miragoli, S. , & Blasio, P. D. (2015). Violent Video Games and Children’s Aggressive Behaviors. SAGE Open, 5(3), 215824401559942. doi: 10. 1177/2158244015599428
5. Romano, A. (2018, January 3). Logan Paul, and the toxic YouTube prank culture that created him, explained. Retrieved from https://www. vox. com/2018/1/3/16841160/logan-paul- aokigahara-suicide-controversy.