Violent Media’s Effect on Youth Essay -- Violence

There is no doubt that mass media impacts the people who consume it. While the media was originally designed to inform people, it has now become so much more. Modern media, especially in the area of violence, can have effects on the viewer’s behavior. Unfortunately the negative effects associated with the progression in the media’s communication technology, have begun to outweigh the positive impact of this representation of media. Media is both an important and time-consuming aspect of modern child’s life due to the fact that children from ages eight to eighteen spend about 44.5 hours a week (6.5 hours a day) partaking in media. The media is consumed in forms of the computer and it’s functions with the Internet, television, and interactive video games. All this time consuming these forms of media added up takes up more time than any other events in their lives besides sleeping. It has been said that the presentation of violent media to young children and adolescents has the most harmful effects on children in varying ways. This is supported by the fact that violence in forms of suicide, homicide, and trauma are the leading causes of death in children and young adults, outweighing the cause of death by sickness. Media programs aimed at young audiences have gone as far as becoming very similar to adult programs in terms of content in language and violence. A typical child in the U.S. watches 28 hours of TV weekly, seeing as many as 8,000 murders by the time he or she finishes elementary school at age 11, and worse, the killers are depicted as getting away with the murders 75% of the time while showing no remorse or accountability. (â€Å"Violence in Media† 1) In the U.S. this is an average of 20-25 viol... ...guided along by a parent. Works Cited â€Å"Childhood Exposure to Media Violence Predicts Young Adult Aggressive Behavior, According to a New 15 - Year Study.† Apa.org. American Psychological Association, 9 March 2003. Web. 2 February 2010. â€Å"Children And Media Violence† MediaWise.org. National Institute On Media & The Family. Fact Sheet. June 2009. Web. 2 February 2010. â€Å"Children One Click Away From Violence, Adult Content.† Wpbf.com. West Palm Beach News, 4 February 2010. Web. 5 February 2010. McCrindle, Mark. â€Å"Many Ingredients Make This Gen Y Cocktail of Violence.† Theage.com. 5 February 2010. Web. 5 February 2010. Torr, James D. â€Å"Violence in Media.† Current Controversies. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2001. Print. â€Å"Violence in the Media- Psychologists Help Protect Children from Harmful Effects.† Psychology Matters. 2009. Web. 23 February 2010.