Sex and Violence
RWS 200 Professor Fish
4/17/13
Sex and Violence: The Impact on American Culture Sex and violence have continued to be two of the most popular themes to center our media and entertainment around. The television, radio, and internet all act as communication channels that constantly present content containing graphic acts of sex or violence. As a result our current generation has become accustomed to seeing more and more realistic portrayals of sex and violence, numbing them to it in the process. This has a profound effect on our society, specifically the adolescents that are still maturing and learning. Violence and sex are subjects that must be handled with caution, so that young people aren’t wrongly influenced by them. Human beings grow up with a natural ability to learn how to function in their environment and setting. Sexual and violent content are ever more present within many of the things considered to be popular within our culture. Overexposure toward these two themes can easily work to develop and shape a person’s mindset. Americans have become increasingly desensitized to the effects that various visualizations of violence have on our culture. In fact often times children are exposed to equal amounts of these visuals as adults. For instance, many of the games that young children and teenagers play revolve around violence. Games such as Call of Duty, Halo, and Gears of War work to saturate our youth with constant of images of violence, with often times the amount of violence in the game being the marketing point. However, many pediatricians have begun to notice and study the effects these games have on children “Analyzing data from studies of 1,231 Japanese students (ages 12 to 18 years) and 364 U.S. students (ages nine to 12 years), the authors found that children who played violent video games early in the school year exhibited increases in physical aggression such as kicking, punching, and hitting three to six months later”( Potera,
4/17/13
Sex and Violence: The Impact on American Culture Sex and violence have continued to be two of the most popular themes to center our media and entertainment around. The television, radio, and internet all act as communication channels that constantly present content containing graphic acts of sex or violence. As a result our current generation has become accustomed to seeing more and more realistic portrayals of sex and violence, numbing them to it in the process. This has a profound effect on our society, specifically the adolescents that are still maturing and learning. Violence and sex are subjects that must be handled with caution, so that young people aren’t wrongly influenced by them. Human beings grow up with a natural ability to learn how to function in their environment and setting. Sexual and violent content are ever more present within many of the things considered to be popular within our culture. Overexposure toward these two themes can easily work to develop and shape a person’s mindset. Americans have become increasingly desensitized to the effects that various visualizations of violence have on our culture. In fact often times children are exposed to equal amounts of these visuals as adults. For instance, many of the games that young children and teenagers play revolve around violence. Games such as Call of Duty, Halo, and Gears of War work to saturate our youth with constant of images of violence, with often times the amount of violence in the game being the marketing point. However, many pediatricians have begun to notice and study the effects these games have on children “Analyzing data from studies of 1,231 Japanese students (ages 12 to 18 years) and 364 U.S. students (ages nine to 12 years), the authors found that children who played violent video games early in the school year exhibited increases in physical aggression such as kicking, punching, and hitting three to six months later”( Potera,