We are a society ruled by media we use it on a daily basis and multiple times a day. Unfortunately there are evil people out there that cause harm not only to themselves but to others. But by us watching the violence on the internet and on tv will we become more violent. In my personal experience I believe we don’t to a point. I’m a typical guy I like my violent movies and shows but that doesn’t make make me violent. I avoid conflict at all time I don’t like it and to me it seem like nothing really gets resolved besides maybe a little stress relief. I personally believe that everyone has violent tendencies however those who act on those violent feeling become for violent or aggressive. By watching violence on the screen I believe has no affect on anyone. For example, (Schneider et al, 2012) indicated that in a longitudinal study was conducted and found that violent people are no more likely to watch violent things than those who are not violent. By this study if two individuals watch the same amount of violent things then why is one more violent then the other.
I have worked in a medical clinic for a very long time and I have seen many of our young patients grow up. My belief that we are all born with violent tendencies came from this observation. There are two patients I know very well because they were the first patients I ever interacted with at that time they were babies. Now they’re in middle school patient A was always a happy baby as well as when he was a toddler very friendly and to this day he is the same. Patient B on the other hand not so much he was always crying when he came in and as he got older he would just be unfriendly, now as a teen he is constantly getting in trouble because he fight with other students. Patient A has both parents and it seems like they pay attention to child maybe that has to do something with the lack of violence. With patient B he came from a one parent house hold which could be the reason why he has so much aggression. The lack of supervision might have contributed to his behavior.
I am a tv fanatic I enjoy it, especially when there are historic facts. In the show Underground there was a scene where a boy asked the care taker if the boys father is bad. The care taker looked at him and stated that “every man has two wolf spirits one bad and one good depending which one he feeds that is who your father is”. Now why am I using a scene from a movie to state my point the reason is because media comes in different forms the new, movies, shows, and the radio. Violence can come in any form but whether you decide to act on those violent tendencies that is who will become.
Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2012). Applied Social Psychology (Second ed., pp. 135-163). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hello!
Well in some ways I agree with you and in some ways I differ a little. I agree that everyone is born with the potential to be violent. I also agree that in some cases it is a choice whether to be a violent person or not. However, there are some people who are born with certain genetic characteristics that allow them to have a greater tendency towards violence. For these people, I don’t necessarily feel they have a choice. Some people are just born “bad people”.
As far as watching violence in the media, violent people might not be more likely than nonviolent people, or as likely, to watch violent programing however, there has been an enormous amount of research done that shows that violence in the media does have an effect on violent behavior. There have been quasi-experiments, longitudinal studies and experiments conducted that have examined the effects of media violence on violent behavior. Across all these studies, the results consistently demonstrate that TV/media violence increases violent behaviors (Schneider, Gruman & Coutts, 2012).
Personally, I am not a violent person either and I have seen quite a bit of violence in the media. However, I don’t feel I was born with the tendency to become a violent person. I feel there are numerous factors that play into whether a person becomes a violent person or not….media violence I feel plays a small role in the overall picture.
Thank you for your blog post!
Reference:
Schneider, Gruman & Coutts (2012). Applied Social Psychology (2nd ed.): Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. Thousand Oaks, CA. SAGE Publications, Inc.