OPPapers.com

Peer Pressure

Movies, Music, TV,
and Peer Pressure

Media violence does not cause children to be violent. If a child is angry, violent movies, television shows, and negative lyrics in music merely add fuel to an already smoldering fire. A violent world contributes to violent children, but is not the cause. That is not to say that television, movies, music, and video games do not hold a tremendous power to influence. They do, and in that respect, they can share the blame, but we must not overlook the deeper cause of violent children, which is an increasing lack of nurturing adult involvement. It is also true that while guns facilitate the act of killing, guns do not create the mindset for the action.
Without question, media violence contributes to the breakdown of inhibitions. The sheer repetition of killing seen on television and in movies, desensitizes our youth, and increases the likelihood that someone will gravitate towards a gun to settle a conflict. But the person has to have a pre-disposition to kill. The issue at hand, which can not be over-emphasized enough, is that we are raising children to have such a disposition. Murderers are trained.
Why Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold plotted, and then stormed Columbine High School with an arsenal of homemade bombs and guns, remains a mystery. The newsmakers ask, was the lack of parental involvement the impetus, or should the blame fall on our violent culture? What of the multitude of offensive computer games, TV shows, movies and CD's, with death and murder themes filling the marketplace? Both Klebold and Harris were reportedly avid fans of the violent video game "Doom". But many other teens, who spend countless hours in front of their computer monitors, thoroughly absorbed in this game, say "Doom" was not the cause.
If you visit Doomworld on-line, you can observe countless messages from girls and boys all defending violent games, and proclaiming they should not be culpable for teen violence. Repeatedly, teens visiting the...