This paper explores the effects that violent media has on teenagers. Violence and aggression can be seen by what teenagers see in the media. Teenagers are most affected by media violence because of the exposure to violence in television shows, movies, music videos and lyrics, and video games. This paper talks about when teenagers look at movies or listen to music, it shows them a sense of what violence is considered to be and they think it is okay to copy these and make it into a reality.
Violence is like sand at the beach; it is everywhere. Violence and aggression go hand in hand. Aggression is considered to be shown through abusive language, assault on self and others and violent threats to others. It is the physical …show more content…
Majority of shows and movies shown on television has something related to violence. For example, the television series, “The Following” is about a serial killer who communicates with other serial killers and forms a cult of believers following his every command. This show portrays that killing is acceptable and when children are watching shows like this it can make them believe that this can be a reality. In the article, “Correlations of Media Habits across Time, Generations, and Media Modalities,” by Grace S. Yang states that “…children may develop positive values and attitudes toward television viewing and adopt media viewing habits consistent with those views” (Yang et al, pg. 358). This study did an experiment on how long parents watched television and compared the results with their offspring watching television. The experiment showed that children watched as much television as the parent did. Out of 523 children and 335 parents, the mean of children watching television was 19.91 compared to parents who had a mean of 18.79 (Yang et al, pg. 8). This shows that when children are allowed to watch a large amount of television, they can become influenced by what they are watching and it can affect their behavior. There are also many movies that have a lot of violence that can …show more content…
Music is around teenagers everywhere and it is very hard to get away from. Some use music as a form of expressing themselves but not all music can express the feeling in a positive way. Rappers discuss and promote violence in their music videos and lyrics. They talk about guns, jail, gangs, selling and using drugs. This allows teenagers become numb towards violence and crime. For example the song “Bring your Whole Crew,” by rapper DMX states, “I got blood on my hands and there’s no remorse”. This just shows how this type of music teenagers listen to on an everyday basis. Teenagers who listen to this type of music not only have no feelings to the violence by they imitate it. There are many sexual influences in music videos such as sex. The R&B singer Trey Songz music is very sexual. Trey Songz music is majority of the time are songs that talks about sex with a woman. Songz lyrics and videos are very sexual and teenagers especially teenage boys listening and watching such videos can affect their sexual behavior towards women in a negative manner. An example of Trey Songz lyrics is from a song named “Panty Droppa” says, “Nothing but your heels on…And we gonna get it in just like we should…Put in the hole like tiger woods”. This is just an example of how sexual the lyrics can become and teenagers are watching and listening to music like this. The article, “Does