Media Violence and Teens



Much of the older generation sees today's teens as extremely combative, disrespectful, belligerent, and lazy. They portray them as bloodthirsty and braindead due to the constant, sometimes violent media that they are exposed to. In general, they are more competent than those horrid portrayals. While it may seem to some that violent media makes today’s youth increasingly vicious, it is actually a debatable topic in which correlation and causation collide, revealing that media violence has minimal effect on violence in teens.

It’s great that parents look out for their children by keeping close eyes on what kind of things they are exposed to, whether it be something negative like rape, or something positive like donating to food drives. Many teens recognize and understand that. Restricting their exposure to things like certain virtual realities, bloody cinematic scenarios, and songs with “curse words” are all methods to conserve their innocence and prevent them from becoming corrupted and turning into murderers, drug dealers, or pimps, right? As a matter of fact, a 2000 FBI report showed playing violent video games in a list of behaviors associated with school shootings. Many adults see violence in media as a means of glorifying violent behaviors and activities.
Many kids in the U.S. watch television. Around 99% of homes in the U.S. contain televisions, and on those televisions, “the typical American child will view more than 200,000 acts of violence, including more than 16,000 murders before age 18.” says Eugene Beresin, M.D. So it’s no surprise that children who are exposed to violent games like the incredibly popular Grand Theft Auto, and violent television programs and cartoons such as Supernatural or Tom and Jerry (the first being favored by teens and young adults and the second being frequently viewed by kids under 7), are more likely to confuse those violent, fictional scenarios with real world violence. So according to many adults, the only way to prevent a new tier of violence from infecting the younger generation is to prevent the spread of this violent media.

On the other hand, censorship of things like music is a violation of the first amendment. No matter how many times this has been used in an argument, its validity still holds true. Everyone has the right to free speech, and everyone has the right to decide what they want to listen to. Songs with “curse words” are not going to turn the average teenager into a rabid killer. Nor are crude movies or games with guns. It’s a common misconception that these mediums fuel the bottled rage within the common teen, and the truth is, many of them use them as outlets to relieve their stress and redirect any angst. As a matter of fact, “violent juvenile crime in the U.S. has decreased as violent video games have become more popular.” The arrest rate for any juvenile crimes has decreased by nearly 50% between 1995 and 2008 while violent video game sales have quadrupled. In addition, most people who play these games do, in fact, realize that it is just a game. The level of control of any given situation in these games allows many teenagers to relieve stress in ways humanity has never been able to before.
Of course, there are those few kids who do commit heinous crimes, but their motives cannot be simply pinned to violent media. A Virginia Tech study showed that exposure to violent movies made no difference in student’s violence levels, but had a direct relationship with their levels of psychoticism. Perhaps that psychoticism made the violent movies, games, and music more appealing, but there is nothing proving that those forms of media were the one and only cause of any sort of lashing out in a violent manner. There are so many different things that could cause a young person to do something violent, such as their environment, the people they interact with and how they interact with them, and their parents. That’s right. Parents have the biggest impact on a child’s personality. Not some game or movie.

The biggest things within these two views of the subject are causation and correlation. Perhaps playing violent games correlates to violent behavior, but that does not mean that it causes it. For example, if a young person commits a violent crime, then they might like violent movies. But, if a young person likes violent movies, then that does not mean that they will commit a violent crime. Another simpler example from Frank Gaskill, PhD, and Dave Verhaagen, PhD, from Southeast Psych, is that: “...Correlations are just relationships between two variables; you can never say one causes the other. We could say that during the season when ice cream sales increase, shark attacks also increase. But we could not say the more ice cream you sell, the more you cause shark attacks.” That is the biggest inconsistency with the arguments that violent media causes teens to be violent. Violent media does not cause anyone to do anything. Maybe it just so happens to be viewed by those who do violent things, but it does not make them do those things.
In conclusion, violent media cannot be blamed for teen violence. It might be a variable that is present, but it is not the sole cause of any sort of violence. There are several very important people who might agree or disagree one way or another, but from a teens’s perspective, their motives for anything cannot be pinned to something like a song with “swears” or a movie that shows blood. They are human beings and there are so many things that affect them and their personalities, like their parents and environments. Just because they like playing games with guns does not mean that they will undoubtedly become murderers. Teens should be given the benefit of the doubt that they can remain human even after exposure to violent media. Correlation is not causation, yet most of the assumptions about them are based off of correlation, sending out a negative image of them to the older generation.