Years ago it was an abomination to see women show too much of their naked legs on television, which is quite a difference between today’s standards. On modern television you can witness foul language, group bashing, barely clothed individuals, and many other questionable influences. This change can be seen in television, music, magazines, newspapers, and especially the internet. The issue at hand is whether improper exposure to bad influences in media can desensitize; but is being desensitized really such a bad thing in our modern times?
Surveys and other research have been discussing desensitization all over the world. It becomes obvious that the media has a strong influence on how we view our world and form our lives. Children, due to television, are less likely to be shocked when seeing or even committing crimes for example. Video games have been a recent focus for the attention of researchers trying to correlate them to reckless and even violent behavior outside of the games people play.
There is a lot of debate around how media influences our decisions in life, however many fail to question whether becoming desensitized is as bad as it sounds. There are thousands of jobs in our modern world that needs a mentally strong individual to accomplish. Surgeons, police, lawyers, vets, and actors are just some of the general fields of work that require employees to be mentally strong enough to cope with the day-to-day job. When a surgeon performs their first major surgery there isn’t as large of a shock factor involved when doing the operation as if the individual was not desensitized.
In some ways it can even be argued that there is some indirect mental experience that can be gained from witnessing violence and sex performed by others through media. While some may be intrigued by seeing others perform these things it doesn’t always mean that the viewer will want to follow in their footsteps. In fact many would be satisfied simply watching crimes on television rather than wanting to commit any. The same is true for video games, which take this concept to the next level allowing you to virtually disperse any raw urges to commit a crime without harm to anyone. By using media as a way to experience improper behavior we feel less of a need to perform these behaviors in the real world.
In these modern times there are benefits and downfalls to becoming desensitized. Some place the blame for their criminal acts on the media while others credit the media for helping them through some tough situations. When used in moderation there is definitely a place for desensitization from media in our world.
Nicely written :p, I was watching a documentary once, (or was it? I don’t remember, but I know I heard this) that people in say, Iran or Afghanistan don’t go and see scary or shocking movies as often as Americans do. Why? Because they’re fucking scared all the time. American people just go and watch it to get that little bit of fear that they usually don’t experience day-to-day. People use things like that in the media to let out emotions, or experience things that they KNOW they aren’t going to ever do (like, a murder for example). Hehe, also, there was that silly graph that was based on real numbers, the number of violent crimes commited by adolescents has steadily decreased since the 1980s, with notable downward spikes in the year / month of releases of prominent games, like Doom 1 for example.
Continuation ^: Also, people are a violent species at heart. They really sincerely DO want to hurt things and break things and throw them and RAAAAAAAAAAWR. Lol, anyway, a GREAT way to let out those emotions are through games or movies.
Very true. It all makes a lot of sense, and it’s very serious point of view.
Playing violent video games, for example, games like Left 4 Dead, or Half Life 2, makes the thought of blood not so uncomfortable, which is a huge plus for a nurse, doctor, policeman, highway patrol, ect.
Keep on rockin’ these kinds of articles, dude!
Great article with great points. But everything in life needs balance. Its good to teach people to cope with violence and sex, as it is a part of life. But you also don’t want to expose this to people who are too young to mentally handle it. Luckily that is what ratings are for. M for mature or rated R. If people just handle mature situations maturely, than they wont NEED to be desensitized. But they could still use media to get used to the “out of the ordinary stuff” such as murder films and zombie video games.
“we feel less of a need to perform these behaviors in the real world.”
This is a very interesting thought- I’ve never thought of that as a valid point in the argument against videogame violence before. I’m sure that FOX news would argue against it (lol), but it’s something to think about. After playing Nazi zombies on World at War, I would be much less hesitant to blow a zombie’s head off than before I’d eveer played it. I guess I’ve been desensitized to zombies- not that I cared too deeply for them before- if they were actually real anyways.
I think that it always depends on the person, and what they allow to affect them- a lot of people don’t even realize how heavily they’re being affected by the media though. But for example, there are crazy people out there who are lost, who think things that would most likely escape our minds as sane; of murder and rape, and enjoying it. I doubt that if we sat them down and let them play a videogame where they rape someone (NATAL for the 360 lol game immersion >_>), that they would be any less likely to act on their thoughts. I’m just saying that your thought on videogames satisfying primal, or violent thoughts or desires won’t always stand true, because there are those who simply can’t be reached. That’s a worst-case scenario there for a person, in relation to this I mean. Now, when you wrote “we” in the quote above, I’m assuming you were referring to the majority of humans, the more rational and sane citizens like yourself and I. In cases like this, maybe it is possible that “urges” could be curbed…but still, I think it(violent tendencies, etc.) heavily depends on environmental factors besides videogames, like how someone is raised, the kind of things they’ve been through, how family treats them, what their friends are like…there’s just more that comes into play in my opinion. Videogames have much less of an impact on more intelligent, older and more mature individuals, really. We hear about kids getting into cars and starting car chases with the cops because they were playing Grand Theft Auto earlier. Awhile back there was some teenager that shot his parents because they grounded him from Halo 3, or something like that). That had more to do with his mental state than actual game content. He could have been equally dependent on pornography, or his cell phone for example, because most of today’s teenagers who play Halo 3 don’t think about shooting their parents just because they’re going on Covenant killing sprees. -end rant- :D
Thank you everyone for the comments, I really do read every one of them. This blog is a learning experience from me, the thoughts you feed me on the topics I discuss I will always retain. I love all of your view points, thanks again! I appreciate it.
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