For Most, You’re as Violent as Your Viewing Habits

The word “violence” is frequent in the vocabulary of society’s youth. Violence in the media has been a matter of many debates, with some parents allowing their children to witness and take in all information that is shared in the media. 

The American Psychological Association released a report in 1988 saying, “Virtually all independent scholars agree that there is evidence that television can cause aggressive behavior.”

“We live in a market economy in which blood lust and other primitive needs of people will be met one way or another; trying to ban something only makes it more attractive and marketable,” R. Scheer said in response to this statement.

Scheer was attempting to exemplify that, if as a society we were to ban violence in news and media, it wouldn’t make the youth more hidden from the violence shown; instead, it would prompt them to look into violence more.

“Tastes and needs will always determine what appears in the marketplace, and when the taste for violence diminishes in the public, so will violent programming,” Scheer said.

“Children, as well as adults, have become more desensitized regarding acts of violence. We are inundated with news reports daily showing acts of violence in this country as well as in the world. If this pattern of disregard for human life or the accepted rules of society continues to decline, these selfish acts of atrocities will become the norm and not the exception. It is time we start thinking about others and not our own self-interests,” Fleetwood Area High Schools Psychology teacher Mr. Todd Weiss said.

Weiss explains that, as a society, we’ve become very desensitized, and if this continues through the years and generations, violence is going to become normalized.

Nearly two-thirds of TV programs contain some sort of physical violence, with the average American watching up to five hours of television a day, according to “PsychatricTimes.” If the average person watches roughly around five hours of television a day, he or she would most likely see some sort of violence, whether it be through the news or a fictional movie/show.