The impact of media violence on youth - RENEE YEO

In the book of “Media Violence and Children” written by Douglas A. Gentle, mentioned that the research have shown vthat television audiences enjoys programs that are nonviolent and violent equally, yet how do the media executives still live by the mantra that “violence sells”? (Gentle, 2003) Their reason for this is that violence draws in attention and more viewership. Media violence affects youth in three different ways. The first impact is that media violence has on people are the connection between aggressive behaviour in certain people—especially teenagers—and who plays violent video games. The second impact to people is that when they consumes hours of TV shows and movies does exposed them to media violence as well. When some teenagers are immature, it leads them to believe that living in this world is very dangerous and scary, and they may even develop wrong thoughts and concepts. The third impact affects teens as they will be desensitise towards media violence, and made them lose sense of media violence, and feels nothing towards the misfortune of others which they think that this is a norm.

Video games can cause teens to develop negative thoughts and even lead to aggressive and violent behaviour. Playing violent games, such as those depicting beheadings, which has the potential of promoting bad thoughts and violent behavior in teens (Chee, 2014). In Singapore, a study was conducted on primary and secondary school students who played these violent games. That research surveyed 3,034 primary and secondary school students, concluded that those students playing violent video games would make them engage in physically aggressive behaviour such as hitting people who anger them (Chee, 2014). Teenagers who play violent games may develop negative thoughts due to the violence in those games (Chee, 2014). An example will be that they might attack those they dislike, believing that those who accidentally bump into them are hostile, and believing that there is nothing wrong with attacking those who agitated them (Chee, 2014). Angeline Khoo, a professor at the National Institute of Education as one of the researchers in the study, mentioned in the interview that, "What you put in your brain can translate into action. Aggressive thinking can lead to aggressive actions,” (Chee, 2014). This also means that when teenagers absorbed aggressive impulse from violent games, they more likely to act violently or even try to imitate the game plot as a result of the influence from the violent games over time. A violent incident in Singapore was caused by the influence of violent games. An Indonesian student from Nanyang Technological University who spent six hours a day playing the video game World of Warcraft stabbed his university lecturer and committed suicide on campus shortly after (Ee, Toh & Huang, 2009). In the video game World of Warcraft, players can use different weapons to kill monsters with explicit violence. In this incident, the behavior of the student who attacked the lecturer might be closely linked from playing violent games. Unknowingly, the violent games had an impact on his thinking, which led to his vicious behaviour of stabbing the lecturer. This also clearly shows one of the effects of media violence on youth.

All the media violence in TV or movies can affect youth possibly leading them to have the wrong idea and perception that the world is more dangerous and scarier than they think. This is explained by Gerbner's cultivation theory, that is, the media shapes people's worldview, and the worldview of TV watchers and TV watchers is different (Liang Meishan and Zaidi Peng, 2013). Frequent TV watchers will imagine that the real world is more dangerous than the real world, and they cannot trust others hence affecting them to feel unsafe living in this world (Liang Meishan, Zaidi Peng, 2013). TV news coverage of murders, rapes, fires and accidents have their significance impact on teenagers' perceptions of the world as a very dangerous place, making them feel scared and terrified (Berger, 2012). News reports are about what is happening in the real world, which turns into real violence and makes audiences think the world is more dangerous than imagined. The media violence caused by movies is considered as illusory violence. To improve the awareness of the violence, movies in many countries also have age restrictions, allowing audiences to better choose which movies are not suitable for them or their children to watch. In Singapore, whether it is a film or a TV program, the Singapore Media Development Authority has a rating for all. For example, ratings of "G", "PG" and "PG13" are recommended for parents to watch with their children (Tan, N.D.). These levels are available on every TV programme aired on MediaCorp TV channels. There are other age-restricted ratings for films in Singapore such as "NC16", "M18" and "R21" (Tan, N.D.). The content of TV or movies can affect a person's mind to some extent. Teenagers' minds are not mature enough. For those who have been in contact with the media, the media will still have an impact on them. Therefore, the government and related agencies are worried that the content of the media will have a negative impact on young people, so they have all controls on these two media. That media violence from TV or movies has the potential to change their minds, as well as cause them to have wrong perceptions.

Another effect of media violence is that many teenagers are now desensitised to many tragic events after viewing a lot of media violence-related content and thinking it is normal. Adolescents are more likely to become less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others (National Institute of Mental Health, 1982). A paper published in 2009 in the academic journal Association of Psychological Science concluded: "People have become 'comfortably numb' to the pain and suffering of others after exposure to media violence, and therefore have They have to be less enthusiastic.” (Johnson, 2011) When teenagers are exposed to multimedia violence and habitually receive media violence, they are unintentionally affected by media violence. Over time, teens become numb to the suffering of those around them. Adolescents gradually lose their ability to feel, to feel nothing about the pain and suffering of others. A correlation study was conducted by Gentile and colleagues, with a number of prosocial measures to assess the video game playing habits of a large sample of Singaporean children (Paludi, 2011). Playing prosocial video games has been shown in research to be positively associated with helping others, empathizing with others, and cooperating with others (Paludi, 2011). For example, when someone needs help, those "numb youths" who are affected by media violence do not immediately lend a hand to help those in need. And they will first think about whether it is necessary to help others, and they will not help if they can. Because those teens have been numbed by media violence.

The conclusion of this report is that most teenagers have been affected by media violence. Even because of the influence of media violence, people developed negative behaviours. After researching and analysing, that media violence in the media has such a huge impact on young people, which may be beyond our imagination. In today's online world, new media violence is being staged every day, and it cannot be suppressed all the time. Advances in technology now make it easier for teenagers to be exposed to media violence. Because of this, it makes media violence more influential. Especially those who use the Internet all the time are exposed to media violence much higher than those who use the Internet less. Media violence is inevitable, but we can reduce its impact. What we can do is educate young people about media violence and let them know what media violence is. When are familiar to the diea of media violence and what potential that it might cause, they will be will not be affected by media violence. Although media violence cannot be prevented, it can at least educate the audience to distinguish right from wrong.

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