Topic > Huge Impact of Mass Media on Children

One of the notable changes in our social environment in the 20th and 21st centuries has been the saturation of our culture and daily lives by the mass media. In this new environment, radio, television, films, videos, video games, cell phones and computer networks have taken on a central role in the daily lives of our children. For better or worse, mass media is having an enormous impact on the values, beliefs and behaviors of our children. Unfortunately, the consequences of one particular common element of electronic mass media have a particularly harmful effect on the well-being of children. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Aggression is a term applied to behavior aimed at hurting other people; It also applies to feelings of anger or hostility. Aggression functions as a motivator, often in response to threats, insults, or frustrations. Aggression is behavior, verbal or physical, intended to physically hurt or otherwise harm another person or property. Whether aggression is manifested by individuals or groups (including nations), it is the most destructive force in social relationships and consequently an important social issue. A major concern in individual or group aggression is its origin. Research conducted by psychologists L. Rowell Huesmann, Leonard Eron and others starting in the 1980s found that children who watched many hours of violence on television when they were in elementary school tended to show higher levels of aggressive behavior when they became teenagers. Observing these participants as adults, Huesmann and Eron found that those who had watched a lot of violence on TV when they were 8 years old were more likely to be arrested and prosecuted for criminal acts as adults. The study showed that being aggressive as a child did not mean watching TV more violently as a teenager, suggesting that watching TV may be a cause rather than a consequence of aggressive behavior. However, subsequent research by psychologists Douglas Gentile and Brad Bushman, among others, has suggested that exposure to violence in the media is only one of several factors that can contribute to aggressive behavior. Most theorists would now agree that the short-term effects of exposure to violence in the media are primarily due to Priming is the process by which the spread of activation in the brain's neural network from the locus representing an external stimulus observed excites another brain node that represents a cognition, emotion, or behavior. External stimulus can be intrinsically linked to cognition, for example, the sight of a gun is intrinsically linked to the concept of aggression. Mimicry is the observation of specific social behaviors around them that increases the likelihood that children will behave in exactly that way. Specifically, when children observe violent behavior, they are inclined to imitate it. Long-term content effects. During early, middle, and late childhood, children encode social scripts into memory to guide behavior through observation of family, peers, community, and mass media. As a result, observed behaviors are imitated long after they are observed. Children's sociocognitive schemas about the world around them are also developed during this period. For example, in-depth observation of violence has been shown to influence children's worldview schemas toward attributing hostility to others..