Media violence has brought adverse effects to the development of the youths and their behavior in the society in general. Most of the youths have developed negative behavior as a result of being addicted with media violence. Media violence which appear in television, films, cinemas, music, on line media and video games have been found to have some effects on the youth lives. This paper tries to critically bring out the psychological effects of media violence on the youths. Media violence has brought a lot of psychological effects on youths and this has been attributed by lack of regulation of media freedom.
Juvenile exposure towards media violence has highly contributed to aggressive behaviors which have in turn interfered with their normal development. Most youths who watch aggressive characters in the media screens and believe that those violent acts are real adopt the aggressiveness later in life. (Block . J . J& Crain . B. R, 252-253). Most of the criminals who have been convicted of crimes were found to have a history of exposure to violence in the television. (Aderson, C. A 113-122). Violent films have the most negative effects on developing children.
Females engage mostly in direct aggression compared to their male counterparts. It has also been found that most of the pre school children have been affected by the cartoon violent activities, which they watch. On reality modern activities which are represented in a violent manner affects the youths mostly, however the youth violence is directly proportional with the parenting behaviors (Comstock, G. &Scharrer, E. 205-226) . Some of the aggressive activities which are watched on media by the female youths have been found to be copied later on life, hence leading to bad behaviors in life.
Social vices have been developed among the youths who watch the media violent activities such as rape, family abuse, harassment and torture. Same sex violence represented in television during child hood times, later on leads to verbal and other physical aggressiveness among youths. Violent media exposure to youths and their daily company with people who are aggressive are some of the factors which lead to aggressiveness of youths. The retrieval of violent memories in life leads to aggressiveness in life of the youths. Televised images are some of the risk factors which increases the rate of aggressiveness among the youths.
Video games have a negative impact, by exposing the violent activities thus creating the climate of fear and desensitation. More over televised violent activities has been found to be a risk factor towards the youth health and their mental development. Most of the individuals who have been exposed to too much media violence have depicted the world as unsuitable place to stay, thus making them to start engaging in ill-motive activities, such as committing suicide and terrorist attacks leading to loss of many lifes in the present society.
Most of the television programs bring out the world as a narrow habitant full of violence; nevertheless this media violence has led to mental illness of the youths. Boxer et al (280) points out that, regardless of other factors such as emotional problems, academic constrains, and community violence influence, adolescent violent scenes from the media has contributed to a lot of violence and aggression among the youths.
It has been pointed out that the effect of media violence activities among the youths varies according to race. African-American males who watch violent programs in television have less effect compared with the white males and white females. Many of the American psychological associations such as American Medical Association, American Academy of family physicians and American psychological Association have pointed out that media violence has a profound effect on the behavior of youths .
According to Bushman et al (477-489 ), children are affected , but the majority at the younger age are affected the most , this is due of the fact that they can not differentiate between reality and fantasy and at the same time they can easily imitate what they observe in media hence developing the same traits during their later life. Violence in the form of trauma, suicide and terrorist attacks cause deaths of some youths who try to commit what they observe in screens. Youths who watch violent video games and television events are likely to behave violently towards their peer groups (Bushman et al, 477-489).
Violent events presented in the video games induces aggressive taught and behaviors to youths, hence making them to be anti-social. Mostly young children who watch media violence have greater probability of being violent later in life than those who do not watch violent events. .Regardless of the negative impact media violence has created in the society, some of the violent media events has positive impact to the youths for example in the case where violent behaviors are punished and corrected so as to fit in the society In general media violence has brought more harm to the youth later than benefiting them.
After watching violent events in the media, youths become more aggressive and anti-social. They are less sensitive to violence in the society and those who suffer out of violence activities, thus they can not help them at all. Moreover they view the world as a violent place to life thus tends to kill themselves by committing suicide. At the same time they view violence as an appropriate method of solving conflicts. Work cited Anderson, C. A. An update on the effects of violent video games. Journal of adolescence vol 27. 2004; pp113-122. Block, J. J, &Crain, B.
R,”Ommissions and errors in media violence and the American public. “American psychologist vol 62; pp252-253. Boxer et al. The role of violent media preference in cumulative development risk for violence and general aggression. Journal of youth and adolescence, February 2009; p280. Bushman et al. Media violence and American public: Scietific fait versus media mis information. American psychologist vol 56; pp477-489. Comstock. &Scharrer, E. Meta analyzing the controversy over television and aggression. Media violence and children. Toronto: university of Toronto press; pp205-226.