Does Violence In Video Games, TV and Music Promote Violence In The Youth?
By Rubye Warren
Northrop High School
Grade 12
“Ah, sh**, here we go again.”. That is one of the famous quotes from one of the top 50
most-selling games of all time, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. If you are unfamiliar with Grand
Theft Auto, you would be surprised to hear how many children, of various ages, have played this game based on the profanity in that quote alone. Or maybe, “You hear me? I heard I had some sneak dissers, “Whoever feeling hot this AR got a heat sensor.”. That is a Tee Grizzley song called First Day Out, a song that most of the youth around my environment know. What does Grand Theft Auto and a Tee Grizzley song have in common? Violence. However, does the violence seen and heard in music, TV shows, and video games influence the youth?
To begin, depending on the age group of the youth, this question will always have various answers. If the child is in the early development stages (newborn to 8), the violence that they witness or hear may have a heavy effect on their behavior. In the early stages of development for a child, they tend to mimic what they see and hear. If you were to let your child play GTA in that stage of their life, later on, they may think it is ok to assault innocent civilians physically, gamble, do drugs, or even murder people; will they know any better? Nobody will know the answer to that question except the individuals themselves. Anderson et Al did a study with 480 elementary school students from third to fifth grade. This study studied their media habits and how they feel about violence. Over time, the children who played violent games at the beginning of the school year became more physically and verbally aggressive and their perspective on violence has also
changed because they see the world as a more violent place. If elementary students have
become more verbally and physically aggressive by playing violent video games, imagine how they’ll be in middle school, or even high school.
Not convinced that music and video games influence the youth yet? The Journal of Studies of Alcohol conducted a study to examine whether younger people (15-25 years old) and
their substance use and aggressive behaviors are linked to the messages in the music they listen to. The results of the study showed that listening to rap music was mainly associated with alcohol, drug use, and aggressive behavior. Alcohol and drug use also translated into techno and reggae.
Drinking alcohol and doing drugs can have effects on your prefrontal cortex, which could then lead to drastic changes in your behavior. Your prefrontal lobe is being developed until you’re 25 years old. The prefrontal lobe is the part of your brain responsible for your actions, thoughts, and emotions. Intake of violent threats and usage of derogatory terms being played continuously into
your day-to-day life as you listen to music could easily begin to influence you to try the things the lyricists are referring to in their songs, which almost always doesn’t end in a good outcome.
In this day and age, there are a variety of applications and technologies that can help you
create and produce an array of things. Many of these creations easily catch the attention of the youth and slip some things in that the youth shouldn’t see. In 1977, there was a study that was conducted as a follow-up to a study that Huesman and his colleagues had done to document the
results of the previous study. Huesman’s study was conducted on 557 children, ages 6-10, and researchers gathered information on the participants and how much they intake violence on TV, how they identify with aggressive characters, their judgment of the violence they were viewing,
etc. The follow-up study gathered information from 329 of the participants from Huesman’s study, ages 20-25 now, and it showed that early childhood exposure to violence increased aggression in all participants. It’s also shown that more aggressive children tend to watch more aggressive
shows. Gender-wise, it is shown that males were more likely to engage with physical aggression whereas females are more likely to engage in indirect aggression. Regardless, the media outlets are increasing the progression of violence in individuals, no matter how the aggression is being distributed. Videos on YouTube that appear to be for children are sometimes targeted for another audience, ex. Happy Tree Friends, Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared etc. Our responsibility is to protect
the youth from the rawness of the world until they are mature enough to begin to live in it
themselves.
The bottom line, witnessing, hearing, or administering violence will have an effect on
anybody, whether it is a drastic change or not. With the evidence I’ve brought forward for you to read and analyze, it is up to you to decide whether or not you believe violent music, video games, and other media outlets promote violence in the youth. Whether you agree or not, all 3 of those subjects do have a major influence on our youth.