Effects of the Violence Presented on TV in Motion Pictures on Americans Society
Introduction
Video games are among the activities that most children find interesting in these modern days. This can be attributed to advanced technology and the ease of access to computers. The design of these games typically varies and may involve violence, whereby play is limited to options like killing, sexually assaulting, dismembering, or maiming images of human beings. This paper focuses on the influence of violent video games on the behavior of children regarding their level of aggression. Violent video games are those games that only portray violence as a means of solving conflicts. While aggression is characterized by confrontation or behaving violently or angrily towards another, DeCamp & Ferguson (2017), indicates an increment in violent acts amongst teenagers with the violence raising concern on the contributing elements of the violence, and such indicates violent video games as having immense contribution in the behavioral change amongst the teenagers.
According to Boyd & Swanson (2016), an American child between the age of 2 and 17 years, play video games for seven hours a week. In a more categorized analysis, adolescent girls play computer games for an average of five hours a week and boys 13 hours a week; this paper, therefore, shall focus on the impact of violent video games to the American society.
The Rise of Television
The advent of TV has changed society as well as the lives of humans diversely than any other technology that was discovered in the 20th century (Boyd & Swanson, 2016). The report shows that people arrange their daily schedules in such a way that they accommodate watching TV on it. Most of the human social activities in the recent generation are scheduled around TV programs that they wish to watch. Every family owns a TV set. To certain extents, the electronics are situated in every room of the house. TV media programs, movies, interactive games as well as music are powerful tools of learning, but they are primarily influential. Research reveals that the average American kid spends approximately twenty-eight hours a week on TV and roughly one-hour playing video games every day.
Further, they use a lot more hours every week watching videos and movies as well as music. Media technology may, and usually are, utilized to inspire, instruct as well as encourage people. However, in the event of violence showcase, and especially in a context glamourizing or trivializing, it can end up being destructive.
When TV technology was rendered in society, by then, it was perceived as a luxury and had a class. It was only affordable to the few who were wealth is the society. The few children who their family has owned a TV were popular, and others and could visit them for a chance to watch. A lot could be presented without the knowledge of many, even the adult if it fails to be said on the radio. It was a media for the few.
Further, it earned a family great respect and consideration. It was such an easy way to tell if a given home has a TV. This is because aerial could easily be viewed from far hanging in the air for network coverage. It was the era of a great revolution as people were used to listening, but now they could hear and watch at the same time.
Television Use
The TV has engraved-out its unique niche within the society. Considering that TV entertainments are available all the time of the day the everyday use could be 8 to 10 hours. Video games become an integral part of the societal undertakings with evolutions starting in the 1970s, indicating an inclination of video games as being preferred in the conduction of leisure activities (Boyd & Swanson, 2016). The evolution of electronic technologies not only increased the available devices offering opportunities for playing video games but has also contributed to the enhancement the access to the medium utilized in playing games. Video games have increasingly become interactive on computers, tablets, iPads, smartphones, and consoles increasing the array of devices used in playing (Boyd & Swanson, 2016). As the evolution off devices has been noted, so has the content experienced changes with violent video games becoming the trend with over seventy percent of the available games having some violent content with varying degrees.
Positive Effects of Television on Kids
Although a lot of parents and guardians can disagree, the use of TV has rendered many positive effects on our society. One thing to consider is that television is a means of entertainment, and it psychologically relief people from stress (Sajjad, Hussain, Rana & Ramzan, 2017). Further, growing kids learn a lot from visual things than audio. Sesame Street which is a PBS classic for more than 35 years now has positive ratings from different individuals for its development of cultural awareness, imaginative, diverse, and literacy shows which has a professional manner of dealing with kids as well as adults feelings (Sajjad, Hussain, Rana & Ramzan, 2017). Therefore, it could be confusing to have the American Association of Pediatrics’ recommending that kids below two years watch no TV programs at all. However, on a better side of it, they provide that kids of 2-6 years should be allowed to watch selected shows a day. The key idea that parents need to focus on is the close follow up of the type of games and programs their kids are engaging in. It could not be easy to limit the children from being on TV since most parents are busy and often in their workplaces.
Moreover, the young adult is such a group of people who are the most beneficiaries of specific programs, and now it becomes difficult to know the shows they are following during their free time. However, technologically and psychologically, TV programs are such a useful tool that has helped grew our youth innovatively and, most importantly, free them from stress and depression of the hardships they are passing in the society. However, if possible, TV programs for the growing kids, if properly selected, they remain a health and education tool of life for enlightening and enhancing the reasoning of the kids and the young generation.
The Negative Effects of Television
One of the apparent adverse effects of television watching is addiction. Long hour of watching makes an individual addictive and less productive. Most individuals waste a lot of time on TV, which could be utilized for productive activities that could contribute to personal development. Likewise, technology has isolated the kids from their parents. People’s ways of life have been assimilated into the television program at the expense of sharing and spending time with the family (Sajjad, Hussain, Rana & Ramzan, 2017). Leisure is an essential aspect of life that allows one to socialize and learn to live with others.
However, television watching has replaced such essential things in people’s lives. Though it is a source of information, it has negatively impacted on education since the kids spend most of their time watching movies and playing games instead of doing their homework assignments (Sajjad, Hussain, Rana & Ramzan, 2017). Further, late sleep affects one’s concentration during the day. Besides, watch and playing violent games among young individuals instills fierceness attitudes in them. They eventually engage in violence in their attempt to exercise what they learned from the videos and games. Moreover, addiction deprives the little one’s time to engage in physical activities that are of great importance.
Why Do We Advertise to Children?
Currently, the commercial world is overwhelmed with a diverse form of marketing strategy. These adverts come in the form of sales display, radio station billboards, and TV programs ads, among others. Adverts that do target children are so much controversial. Marketers opt for children since they are aware they can easily win their hearts. Besides, the companies have realized that the young generation is the group that spends most of its time on TVs. This has led too many firms taking advantage of the kids in their advertising campaigns.
Children insist on their guardians or parent to purchase a given item they saw on the media platforms. Research shows that kids influenced about $500 billion purchases by the family by 2000 (Saxena et al., 2017). Small children will not just insist on their parents to buy toys, but as well they will make them purchase other items.
While some adverts have no negative impact on the children, some others are bad. They expose kids to things beyond their age, which require rational decision making; this is dangerous as children end up engaging in activities that ruin them physically and psychologically (Saxena et al., 2017). Besides, it is in the same advert that kids end up seeing movies and videos adverts readily in the market, and this makes it difficult to control which media is for kids and which is for adults. The spending rate for kids doubles every year. Therefore, marketers’ choice of children is due to their ease of influencing them since they definitely will spend on anything they find interesting. This has resulted in the misuse of children by some firms’ especially video games that have used kids to participate as characters in violent games.
Media Violence Effects on Children
Studies have shown that prolonged interactions with violent video games, results in the elevation of adrenaline level in children and hence and extended physiological arousal. Medical researchers have also related the harmful effects on the developing brains and bodies of children due to repeated adrenaline arousal as a result of watching and playing video games (DeCamp & Ferguson, 2017).
The negative aspects of violence include scenes involving the killing of animals and people with an increment in the prowess of the player being linked with the objects killed. Violence has numerous rewards in the games, with one progressing from a stage to the next owing to their achievements in the current levels, as exemplified through Mortal Kombat, where increased aggression earns progression (de Leeuw & Buijzen, 2016). The violence in some of the video games is glorified. It contributes to the distortion of the behaviors of the children playing the games who relate violence as being a positive attribute.
The interaction with the violent content of video games does not necessarily translate to the players exhibiting violent behaviors or changes in their behavior. Instead, the consistency and exposure levels to the video games with violent content are the one contributes to increased aggression. DeCamp & Ferguson (2017) indicates the increment in aggression amongst children as correlating to the violence amongst leading characters in video games whom the children emulate. The study utilized different participants, all of whom were presented with different scenarios and required to show how the characters in the video games would handle such situations.
The scenarios presented had an interpersonal conflict that required resolution, and that underlined the violent perspective of lead characters in video games and their utilization of force in the resolution of numerous challenges (DeCamp & Ferguson, 2017). The children on exposure to the violent video games exhibited increased expectations of hostility and aggression as the mechanism of resolving different challenges. The expectations expressed through the children interacting with violent video games are translated into their interpersonal relationships, where conflicts are resolved with violence. The violence includes aping some of the brutal tactics with physical activity or the utilization of vulgar language in conflict resolution. Violence is premeditated with altercations being escalated into violent misunderstandings, and the threshold of handling criticism is lowered (de Leeuw & Buijzen, 2016).
Parents have been noted as abrogating the role of scrutinizing the content of the video games, and that increases the uninhibited access to violent content amongst the children. Patterns of playing video games within the country are reflected through the societal development of aggression in the behavior of adolescents. The entertainment aspect of video games has been subverted with analysis on the content indicating about eighty-nine percent of the video games played on varied platforms as having some sort of violent content (Boyd & Swanson, 2016). The content, as identified, has variations in the level of violence, with about half of the games having extreme violent content amongst the leading characters. For example, Mortal Kombat presented one of the video games with intense violence, and compared to a subtle game like dream league soccer, which entails playing football, have variations in their effects on the behaviors of the children.
The violence could, in some incidences, be linked with the saving of masses from destructive persons in the society, and as such, violence is portrayed as being positive in the elimination of evil characters. The hostility exhibited in video games increases the expectations of persons playing the games on the likelihood of a violent scene. As such, during interactions with others, children are on the lookout for minor hits of hostility. The changes in behavior are related to the expectation and assignment of hostility on others during interpersonal interactions, and that contributes to changes in the behaviors of children while connecting with others (DeCamp & Ferguson, 2017).
Conclusion
Video games are increasingly adopting violent content with the restriction being difficult for parents who, in the majority of the incidences, have busy schedules limiting their abilities to monitor the content of video games. Such, the increment in exposure to video games with violent content increases the changes in behaviors of the children playing the games. The behavioral changes are noted through aggression and enhanced expectations of hostility amongst the concerned children. The expectations of hostility alter interactions amongst children with concentration placed for the evidence of the slightest provocation. The hostile expectations reflect the violent content and contribute to the application of violence in the resolution of interpersonal conflicts. This has, therefore, increased the hostile activities among people in American society.
References
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