Aspects Regarding the Attitudes and Impact of Different Media - Essay Example

The sophisticated video games of the present day require players to pay constant attention to the game and actively live the characters/roles they are playing in the game, rather than passively watching a movie. This whole experience has both positive and negative repercussions on the players. Several studies have been conducted to evaluate the impact of these media on children. Since children are directly exposed to video games right from the age of childhood to adolescence and then teenage and in some cases even when they are old enough; video games nowadays are one of the strongest factors that impact the social behavior of the youth of tomorrow.

Television has been a groundbreaking invention for the broadcast pictorial display of programs and entertainment for the whole of mankind. However, over the decades of development and progression, T.V. has been transforming into a guiding hand for society; one that sets the trends and tells the latest fashion, that tells you how to behave with elders, peers, young ones, and fellows, which dictate your overall behavior (Slater). Examples of Negative Impact: “CSI” a famous TV serial has had a huge viewership since it began airing and has been guiding juries in actual life not to make decisions without inappropriate evidence (Tyler).

However, a great disadvantage is also significantly impacts many parties in different cases. In an article published by Arizona State University, Jeffery Heinrick states that jurors nowadays have, at an increasing rate, started demanding unnecessary forensic tests and reports which are in most cases useless and a waste of precious money that could have been utilized productively otherwise. This has led to the commercialization of this profession. In 1999 the University of West Virginia had 9 graduates in forensic science, in the year 2004, 400 graduated with a forensic degree.

Richard Gallagher, who is a director at the NYU Child Study Center's Parenting Institute, has stated that players who become occupied in first-person shooting video games, for example, many times become aggressive and usually consider their society with a hostile view. Research & Statistical Evidence In an article from the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, “The effect of video game violence on physiological desensitization to real-life violence”, the author state (Anderson): “Research shows that violent video game exposure increases aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, physiological arousal, aggressive behaviors, and decreases helpful behaviors.”