Should violent media be banned? Many teenagers are now being introduced into playing or watching violent media at very young ages and society are wondering if they should be concerned about it; they are wondering whether it can cause aggressive behaviour within the children/teenagers. Violent video games and violent action films normally have age restriction son them so that children under the age of 15 or in some cases 18 cannot buy them.
You see many teenagers with these games and movies as parents to buy the media for them, this can then be argued if they have parents consent it is okay for them to play them on the other hand the age restrictions are there for a reason and should be listened to. As well as being bought by parents, teenagers can also access violent media on the internet as it is very easy for them to download the material from the internet. Being able access the media so easily the age restriction does not have an effect for many teenagers.
Popular games such as ‘Call of Duty’, ‘Gears of War’ and ‘Halo’ are played by teenagers everywhere and are said to be violent. These games do create violent images of death and seriously wounded characters and as the games are very interactive it could lead to the person playing these games to feel aggressive. There has been psychological experiments been taken place that involve investigating aggression and how it has an effect. The study of Bandura shows how aggression can be intercepted by children just by watching a video.
This is evidence that children do get influenced by others behaviours and supports that violent media should be banned. Albert Bandura (1977) tested 36 boys and 36 girls from Stanford University nursery ages between 3 and 6. Under controlled conditions, 24 boys and girls watched a male or female role model (according on the gender of the child) behaving aggressively towards a ‘Bobo doll’ they also made distinctive sound effects like ‘pow’ and ‘boom’. Meanwhile the other 24 children were a control group and we exposed to any model at all.
After this the children were then put inside a room with the Bobo doll and were observed. The result of this shown that those children who observed the aggressive behaviour from the role models were more aggressive towards the Bobo doll that the children that were not exposed to any violent behaviour. This study does have some disadvantages as it lacks ecological validity and is not a real life situation. This illuminates that aggression can be developed through watching violent actions. Therefore watching and playing violent media could have the same effect on teenagers.
Exposing them to this kind of material could lead to them being more aggressive. If the media was banned there could be a possibility that there would be that there would be a decrease in violent behaviour in society. However it could be argued against banning violent media. Some teenagers do enjoy playing popular games and for them it could be a quite enjoyable experience what they can play with their friends and socialise. The teenagers do have their parents consent to play these games so therefore should be able to play these games and watch movies.
Only some teenagers of society are seriously aggressive to a point it would be a problem so some teenagers could argue that not all teenagers are aggressive and violent media shouldn’t be banned as it is not fair to most of the population who is not dangerously aggressive from being exposed to this media who want to enjoy the media. It could be said that aggression in teenagers could be a biological problem and that is the reason they are aggressive. Biology has a role in aggression as genetics influences a major part in some aggression.
Studies have developed an understanding in biological aggression; studies such as Young et al can prove that aggression can be seen as biological. Young et al (1964) investigated testosterone in monkeys. Pregnant female monkeys were injected with testosterone so the foetus would have an exposure to testosterone. Then they were observed. Male offspring with differences in behaviour and female monkeys were more aggressive. So aggression could be caused by hormones so this could be a reason why violent media shouldn’t be banned as it not needed to as it does not cause aggression.
My opinion on this topic is that violent media should not be banned but age restrictions should be kept on violent films and video games; this then can ensure that they have parent’s permission to play the games and watch the films. Also if a change occurs in the teenager that change could suggest that the teenager is being aggressive they should be stopped being exposed to having this violent media to see if that makes a difference in the way that they act.
