For decades, social researchers have debated the dangers of children’s exposure to media violence. An average parent might ask, “How dangerous can the media really be?”
In a recent article in Newsroom America,
we learn of an international Media Violence Commission. After much
deliberation, this scholarly group concludes: “Violent images…act as
triggers for actively aggressive thoughts and feelings already stored in
memory.”
Their statement goes further: “If these aggressive thoughts and
feelings are activated over and over again because of repeated exposure
to media violence, they become chronically accessible, and thus are
likely to influence behavior.” Upon reading this article, one could
easily assume that we are dealing with settled science, and that
children’s exposure to violent media will have serious consequences.
However, another recent article
by Jay Gield of the National Institute of Health reviews this same
material and seems to disagree. Gield recalls how, not long ago, the
California legislature passed a law to limit access of minors to violent
video games. In response to this perceived infringement on their
business, the gaming industry took an appeal all the way to the Supreme
Court. After both sides’ best academic experts pled their cases, the
Supreme Court decided to strike down the law, arguing in favor of First
Amendment rights, with video games—violent or otherwise—falling in the
category of free speech.
Gield seems to see value in this
decision, feeling that current research by social scientists is not
sufficiently solid to give clinicians, notably pediatricians, clear
direction on what to recommend to families of children attracted to
violent media.
So where does this leave us today? I believe the
findings of the Commission and Gield’s article are excellent jumping-off
points to place my own views on violent media in a broader cultural
context.
Though I am a clinician, my perspective is not simply
based on clinical anecdotes, but neither is it rooted solely in my
reading of the researchers. Rather, I anchor my perspective in a reading
of American social history. As a cultural historian, I often find it
prudent to place scientific studies of this nature in a historical perspective, since children sitting in front of TV sets hardly live in a cultural vacuum.
Over
the last 60 years, the American family has gradually evolved. In
particular, three cultural trends impacting American families are
readily evident: high divorce
rates, births of fewer children, and greater family mobility. The first
two changes mean there are fewer family members now living in most
households; the third translates into greater physical distances
separating nuclear and extended families.
Three additional cultural trends deserve mention as well: the departure of both parents into the workplace,
the stagnation of wages in many families, and the general perception
that many neighborhoods are unsafe. These trends signify longer hours
for parents away from home, while their children are left indoors, often
unsupervised and alone.
A final factor is the gradual penetration
of the media into the average home. Between the 1950s and our time, the
sheer number of media gadgets deployed in households has grown
exponentially. They sit installed in living and dining rooms, bedrooms,
and kitchens. They drone on as we eat, attempt to speak over them, and
fall asleep. In short, they are everywhere.
Unsurprisingly, these
seven cultural trends begin to work in tandem. As a child’s contact with
adults and other children dwindles, the child wanders more readily
toward the media. While the voices of parents, siblings, and extended
families grow less influential, and media imagery more ubiquitous, media
creations have become our children’s mechanical companions and
playmates. Because of the sheer volume of media violence bombarding our
kids, this artificial brutality becomes imbedded in their minds. With
this repetitive imagery buried deep in our children’s memory, in their dreams day and night, isn’t it likely to spring from fantasy into reality, one way or another?
George Drinka, M.D. is on the clinical faculty of the Oregon Health Sciences University.
;)
Abby
