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  • Essay / Huge Impact of Mass Media on Children

    One of the notable changes in our social environment in the 20th and 21st centuries has been the saturation of our culture and daily life by mass media. In this new environment, radio, television, films, videos, video games, cell phones and computer networks have played a central role in the daily lives of our children. For better or worse, the media has a huge impact on our children's values, beliefs and behaviors. Unfortunately, the consequences of a common element of electronic media have a particularly detrimental effect on the well-being of children. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essayAggression is a term applied to behavior intended to harm others; also applies to feelings of anger or hostility. Aggression functions as a motive, often in response to threats, insults, or frustrations. Aggression is behavior, verbal or physical, intended to physically injure or otherwise harm another person or thing. Whether aggression is manifested by individuals or groups (including nations), it constitutes the most destructive force in social relations and, therefore, an important social issue. The origin of individual or collective aggression constitutes a major concern. Research by psychologists L. Rowell Huesmann, Leonard Eron and others beginning in the 1980s found that children who watched many hours of television violence when they were in elementary school tended to show more violence. levels of aggressive behavior when they became adolescents. By observing these participants into adulthood, Huesmann and Eron found that those who had watched a lot of violence on television when they were 8 years old were more likely to be arrested and prosecuted for criminal acts at age adult. The study showed that being aggressive in childhood did not predict watching more violent television in adolescence, suggesting that television watching may be a cause rather than a consequence aggressive behavior. However, later research by psychologists Douglas Gentile and Brad Bushman, among others, has suggested that exposure to media violence is only one of many factors that can contribute to aggressive behavior. Most theorists now agree that the short-term effects of exposure to media violence are primarily due to the process by which the spread of activation in the brain's neural network from of the locus representing an observed external stimulus excites another brain node representing a cognition, an emotion or a behavior. External stimulus may be intrinsically linked to cognition; for example, the sight of a gun is intrinsically linked to the concept of aggression. Mimicry is the observation of specific social behaviors around them that increases the likelihood that children will behave exactly that way. Specifically, when children observe violent behavior, they tend to imitate it. Long-term content effects. During early, middle, and late childhood, children encode social scripts in memory to guide their behavior through observation of family, peers, community, and media. As a result, observed behaviors are imitated long after being observed. During this period, children's social cognitive schemas about the world around them are also.