Fantasy Violence On Tv And Computer Games example essay topic

The Effects of Violence on TV Did you hear about the recent Jonesboro shootings in America where an 11-year-old and a 13-year-old shot down and killed four school mates and a teacher? The outrage has been put down to many things including exposure to violence in the media and computer games. Television authorities will tell you that TV doesn't breed murderers, and to some extent it is true, but the fantasy violence on TV and computer games is enough to tip a blood-drenched fantasy or perhaps a gruesome dream of revenge into an irreversible act of reality. The debate over the effects of violence in the media and computer games has been going on for quite some time, but it was only in 1997 that it reached significant status just after the killing of an 11 year old boy by a 14-year-old in Japan.

The 11-year-old was decapitated and his head placed on the school fence. The idea supposedly came from a form of media or computer game. This lead to the investigations of the so-called 'Nintendo generation', a generation so focused around computer games and television that reality is no longer easy to distinguish from fantasy and abnormality. Professor Fu kaya of the New York Times says 'They haven't been growing up with real feelings, living with real friends, or with real nature. ' Figures show that one in four British children has their own VCR and uses it to record's-rated films late at night.

X-rated films are not the problem. The problem is that the films are x-rated for a reason and this reason is that they are not designed for children's ever believing eyes. Figures also show that they are very damaging, not least because of the desensitizing more sex and violence has on children's minds. The rampage in 1987 by a sacked mail man put the term 'going postal' into the American vocabulary, meaning: a murderous rage. Since then a computer game has been made, although it is banned in Australia demo's are available on the internet. The game POSTAL, involves a series of massacres, including a school ground shooting.

The player has to try and stalk as many school kids as possible and then shoot them. Then they have the chance to either listen to their p lees for mercy of ignore them and finish them off for extra points. So the object of the game is to kill as many people as possible. Toni June, spokeswoman for the Adelaide-based pressure group 'Young Media Australia', says that there are three distinct psychological effects of overexposure to any kind of violent media. 'The same problems crop up with children who are exposed to a lot of computer games use. The effects can be, firstly, , where the child no longer cares about people or animals being hurt.

Aggressive behaviour has also been linked with computer games. And, thirdly, through exposure to the media children believe the world to be a much more violent and dangerous place than it really is. ' The first point is extremely relevant: ', there the child no longer cares about people or animals getting hurt,' for example it's like someone moving to New York's alleyways and joining a gang. The first murder you witness would be a terrible experience but after a time a murder would be just a murder; who cares? For a child's eager eyes the words 'cut' and 'action' never existed. The movie-makers and television makers of Hollywood have succeeded in their job very greatly; so much in fact that their audiences are transported to a world of fantasy, a one in which they are suspended in disbelief, where all things become possible - including acts of gruesome violence.

An adults responsible brain distinguish reality and fantasy, but a child, who can't distinguish the difference between reality and fantasy can let a murderous dream of revenge slip through the fantasy barrier into actuality. It's hard to imagine that some students in Jonesboro thought the shooting was 'all fake', or a play by the drama students. How could such a sudden display of gruesome violence seem as fake as a Hollywood film? But because violence and bloodshed are constantly openly displayed on the TV, they have been deprived of their meaning.

While it is indisputable that media violence has a profound effect on children and the emotionally vulnerable, media images alone do not create murderers. The fingers on the triggers in Jonesboro may have belonged to 11-and-13-year-olds, but the real criminals of this crime and many others of this sort are the societies world-wide who allow TV to ram murder and other forms of violence down their throats, and who hand out guns and other potential murder weapons for playtime. Society needs to realise that it has taken a backward step in allowing make-believe violence to become such a way of life. We as a society need to regain an understanding of the true value of human life and this needs to be reflected in the media. The standards that are accepted on TV in this generation will become the standards that will be accepted in real life the next generation.