Looking at the recent trends, one can note that the public is becoming desensitized to seeing blood on screen. With films becoming continuously gorier and the rise in popularity of violent video games in the past couple of decades, even young kids have most likely encountered such media in their lives. Due to this trend, there have been public debates about the effect such media has on peoples’ minds, often linking something as innocuous as an individual’s preferences in entertainment with aggression and proclivity for the crime. On the other side, many people argue that there is little to no correlation between the consumption of violent media and the expression of destructive tendencies in real life. The purpose of this paper is to outline these two opinions and analyze which of them can be scientifically backed up.
The Link between Violent Media and Aggression
The fact that media is becoming more prone to showing violence on screen is undisputable. In terms of the film industry, many people have noted that today’s standards are for PG-13 films significantly differ from those implemented a couple of decades ago. This ensures that even teenagers are allowed to see gory content that would have been restricted for them a couple of decades ago, advancing the trend of normalizing violent content. In regards to video games, one can notice that most of the most popular computer and console games belong to the action or horror genres, which often contain bloody imagery. People, advocating for thof e cease this trend, justify this extreme measure by linking violent media with aggressive tendencies in individuals who consume it due to “the deception of perceptions” (Feldman, 2012, p. 117). Adherents of this theory hypothesize this trend is cyclical, with current media influencing future creators to conceive even gorier concepts. However, many others claim that aggression is not rooted in an individual’s hobbies, and there is no scientific data to back up an existing correlation between the two phenomena.
The Cyclical Nature of Violent Media
Most critics of violent media use the relatively rapid increase of offensive content in the past couple of decades to prove that a problem exists in this area. This trend, according to this vocal section of the public, demonstrated that the people who consume such materials become desensitized to violence, adopt aggressive tendencies themselves and grow to make even gorier content. However, logically the reason behind the increase of violent imagery lies not with the changing inclinations of creators but instead with the rapidly evolving technology. When the first films appeared, there were no feasible means for their directors to bring violence to screen. That being said, a lot of cinema works back then included fights and scenes with weaponry with only bloody imagery missing as there were no effects to employ for it. Likewise, the earliest video games’ mostly consisted of pixels that were insufficient in bringing the gory scenes of today to screen.
Modern Violence
Individuals, calling for the cease of violent media, state that due to the nature of the entertainment people consume, the world is experiencing an increased rate of aggressive crimes. This logic implies that society becomes desensitized to seeing horrific imagery, their moral compass becomes skewed, and they are bound to repeat similar offenses in real life. However, there is no data to back this up as nowadays society “is enjoying, at least statistically, the safest times our species has known since we evolved 300,000 years ago” (Salopek, 2020, para. 14). The reality is that people no longer experience certain horrors like witch trials and excessive legal tortures, and tragedies like mass genocide and death by nuclear weapons occur at a lower rate. A lot of the crimes mentioned above occurred during the years when media did not exist to influence individuals to act on their aggressive urges.
The Positive Impact of Violent Media
With the outcries against violent media, researchers started collecting scientific data relating to this topic. Most of the findings discover a correlation between gory content and aggressive tendencies. However, this correlation was revealed to be inverse, which not only disproves peoples’ theories on the topic but establishes the positive impact violent media has on an individual’s mind and life in general. For instance, a study revealed that the televised Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), which showcases quite bloody imagery, has caused “systematic and economically meaningful reductions in violent crime” (Lindo et al., 2019, p. 22). This effect increases proportionally with the runtime allotted to the show. Likewise, “long-term exposure to violent videovideo gamesssociated with reduced hostile feelings and depression” (Villani, 2018, p. 90). This is achieved due to the catharsis of stress relief through the means of media.
Conclusion
With easy access to news, people learn about violent crimes committed all over the world. As a way of rationalizing this reality, many individuals turn to blablamedia for the effect they can have on one’s mind. However, there is no data backing up an increase in crime in comparison to the past when films and video games did not yet exist. Likewise, while research shows that there is an existing correlation between aggression and violent content, it is inverse with such media having a positive effect on people.
References
Feldman, R. S. (2012). Psychology and your life. McGraw-Hill Education.
Lindo, J. M., Swensen, I. D, & Waddell, G. R. (2019). Persistent effects of violent media content. The University of Oregon.
Salopek, P. (2020). Is the world becoming more violent? National Geographic.
Villani, D., Carissoli, C., Triberti, S., Marchetti, A., Gilli, G., & Riva, G. (2018). Videogames for emotion regulation: A systematic review. Games Health Journal, 7(2), 85-99.