Television and Video Game Violence Affects Adolescent Aggression.

Essay by CryoKillSwitch May 2003

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Here's the scene: Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and a well-armed Elmer Fudd are having a stand-off in the forest. Daffy the rat-fink has just exposed Bugs' latest disguise, so Bugs takes off the costume and says. "That's right, Doc, I'm a wabbit. Would you like to shoot me now or wait until we get home?"

"Shoot him now! Shoot him now!" Daffy screams.

"You keep out of this," Bugs says. "He does not have to shoot you now."

"He does so have to shoot me now!" says Daffy. Full of wrath, he storms up to Elmer Fudd and shrieks, "And I demand that you shoot me now!"

Elmer takes aim and fires sending Daffy's beak whirling around his head like a roulette wheel. What does this say to children watching this? Don't you think this might make children more aggressive to see someone shot at point blank only to be unharmed and fit as a fiddle? I do and I plan to prove that video game AND television violence cause children to become more aggressive.

Firstly, psychologist Brandon S. Centerwall states, "Children have an instinctive desire to imitate behavior. Unfortunately, however, children are not born with an instinct for evaluating the appropriateness of certain actions" (1-58). This means that children naturally model what they see on television and do not typically think about whether or not they should model what they see.

John Murray, professor of developmental psychology at Kansas State University, made another very surprising discovery. He examined brain scans of teenagers while they watched bloody fight scenes from Rocky IV, and he found that there was an increased activity in the part of the brain that registers long-term memory of threatening events. This is also the part of the brain that is identified with post-traumatic stress. What...