Swati Banerjee

Young Generations and Media Violence Children are probably the group most susceptible to media violence. Along many other factors which may or do influence them, aggressive cartoons, movies or series might have significant negative outcome. Less cautious parents will still say: "Let them see, the future's not going to pamper them either." While this might be a layman's formula for not spoiling the children generally, it can also result in developing highly destructive young characters. When children constantly watch violence on TV, they just might think of it as of a great problem solver. Providing there is no parental guidance from the early start, graphic violence may easily result in young people becoming socially unfit. Variety of such disorders will often show, where bullying and violence towards classmates will become an excellent way of imposing aggressive children as terrifying authorities who know nothing about consequences. If children are in continuous contact with violence, they might end up transferring it towards family and friends in many real life circumstances. From cartoons to violent video games, children may start to see the real world as a hostile place where they have to fight. In some children, this eventually leads to dissociation and communication through violence only. From family through school, such children will show higher tendency towards conflicts than others of the same age. Various psychological and educational studies proved the connection between media violence and problematic future for children. They start to live in their own aggressive worlds of influential media violence wrapped in top-selling video games. This being said, the media, virtual world and games require strict parental guidance, not only due to the PG rating sticker on a DVD or a TV movie. Parents actually should forbid their kids to watch content inappropriate for their age, at least as much as they can muster. No parent wants that bell ringing when a child kills his first bug, hurts an animal or dissembles its own toy for no clear reason. That is already a signal for reaction. Close to their imagination by nature of their years, children cannot often make a clear distinction between realistic world and fantasy. There are many cartoons, movies and games which kids can watch or play without any side-effects. On the other hand, the market offers content which will lure children into the worlds where they can't draw the line between reality and imagination. Instead of creativity, gentle children's imagination becomes a playground for violence and destruction. It is pretty hard to explain to kids that most of what they see in movies or their PC games is not real. Media absorbs them and they cannot easily accept the fact that (for example) their favorite character died, because they find it hard to comprehend the concept of movies - actors are real persons and their favorites are mainly fictional. Hence their inability to draw a straight line between reality and their dream world, which is sometimes not comfortable, but aggressive and stressful. As many psychiatric studies will state, children are capable of transferring violent behavior which they see through media at a very early age. Such behavior will usually break loose once they start to go to school, which is a stressful social and environmental change for most kids. Their aggressive attitudes boosted by TV or other media violence they watch on a daily basis may relate to their violent idols instead of real-life role models. Violence is a part of media, where nobody bans it. Quite the contrary, it will not disappear from the real world if banned from the fictional one. People will not stop hurting each other if we choose not to watch the news about it. However, such content needs control and today's parents should take their guidance seriously. Nobody wants their children go through added stress and social discomfort in future due to parents' lack of time or simple irresponsibility. Continuous contact with violence through media will have a very specific impact on kids. They might see aggression as the easier way of problem solving. It is exactly why the content they watch must always be under strict parental control. No parent wants their kids unfit for what is considered to be normal and healthy society. They need help growing up, where parental control over violence through media will mean a lot for their futures.