Do we become more aggressive and less empathetic by watching violent media and playing first-person
shooter games?
Evidence suggests the old adage 'you are what you eat' applies to what you feast your eyes
on!
I grew up playing first-person shooter games.
I wouldn't consider myself an aggressive person but I realised early on that games were becoming
more gruesome, more lifelike and either due to a lack of self-control or an addictive
personality, I found they encouraged unhealthy habits to form and impacted both my waking
and sleeping subconscious.
So I quit!
It doesn't sound surprising to me that, according to a recent CNN article ". . . more
than 400 studies revealed a "significant" link between being exposed to violent media
(in general) and aggressive behavior, aggressive thoughts and angry feelings."
In fact, the World Health Organisation recently added 'Gaming Disorder'
to its list of mental health conditions.
Although some remain sceptical about this significant link there is an interesting test
being conducted by a few scientists at MIT.
A computer algorithm nicknamed 'Norman', after the lead character in Alfred Hitchcock's
film Psycho, has been solely exposed to continuous streams of violent images.
The scientists discovered that the data they fed the algorithm was more important that
the algorithm itself.
After subjecting Norman to a series of inkblot drawings, known in psychotherapy as a Rorschach
test, they realised that they had created psychopathic artificial intelligence.
Instead of seeing "a black and white photo of a small bird," Norman responded by describing
the image as "man gets pulled into dough machine."
Now, admittedly, we are not walking cyborgs and the complexity of the human mind cannot
accurately be compared to artificial intelligence but it stands to reason that what we consume,
in terms of media, has an impact on us.
Children around the world in the late 70's and early 80's developed an irrational fear
of open water after watching Jaws, or a completely rational and rather legitimate fear of clowns
from watching Stephen King's It.
The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai released a journal on the effects that violent
media has on the brain.
Their research, which was conducted on a group of 54 men, led them to conclude ". . . that
participants with aggressive traits have a different brain function map than non-aggressive
participants . . . " Dr. Alia-Klein, one of the researchers on the team said that "Aggression
is a trait that develops together with the nervous system over time starting from childhood
. . . . This could be at the root of the differences in people who are aggressive and not aggressive,
and how media motivates them to do certain things.
. . . How an individual responds to their environment depends on the brain of the beholder
. . ." So your child might not grow up to become
an axe wielding maniac, but then again your child may become conditioned to sadistic scenes
of gratuitous violence.
Instilling empathy into children can be hard enough without the negative influence of violent
films and games.
For me personally, the video game that caused me to realize that a line had been crossed
was called Manhunt.
In a Wired magazine article praising the lasting effect the game had on the genre, Julie Muncy
writes: "Violence is the point of the game.
But killing in Manhunt is far from glamorous.
That's what remains so effective about it.
It's not a fun killing game.
It's a horror game."
New Zealand banned the game outright, Australia eventually followed suite and in Canada it
became the first computer game to be classified as a film, in Ontario.
This game was released fifteen years ago but more recently a game called Active Shooter
allowed players to walk through a school to gun down children.
The game was ultimately pulled but the violence and realism in games is only increasing in
intensity and shocking, vile content, since games like Manhunt were released.
Will you permit your children to be exposed and become engrossed in violent media?
Who out there is even willing to stop their ears from hearing of bloodshed and shut their
eyes from seeing evil?
I am Jonathan Riley for Tomorrow's World Viewpoint.
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To access articles, telecasts and booklets from Tomorrow's World, visit our website at
www.TWCanada.org We all have a choice as to the words that
come out of our mouths.
We can encourage and we can slay someone with our words.
Look out for the monster in our mouth.