With the increasing prevalence of media in our everyday lives, it is hard to avoid certain motifs that circulate throughout- violence being one of them. Violence seems to be the major theme for not only many video games, but for short clips (i.e. people falling/getting hurt on YouTube), in movies (Quentin Tarantino movies, for example), and even in children’s TV shows. It can be seen that violence is continually utilized for trivial entertainment. Multiple studies in the past have shown that increased exposure to violence has been a culprit for a gradual desensitization to violence. This can affect the emotional sensitivity as well as limit the emotional range of people that are consistently exposed to violence.
In the article “Hollywood and Gun Violence,” Abraar Karan connected the violence portrayed in movies to the increased empathy it induced towards villains and how it leads to desensitization. He focused on the latest Best Picture Oscar nominee, The Joker, and analyzed the incessant violence throughout that film. He claimed that the depictions of a man with “debilitating depression, mania and psychosis” (Karan 2020) is allowing people to make excuses for the actions that the main character, Arthur Fleck, did throughout the film. Karan emphasizes the notion that awarding movies that convey such messages can eventually lead the viewers to think that it is okay for people with mental disabilities to turn towards violence because the act can be, in a way, justified. In turn, people with mental disabilities will also look at this movie and think that since they are in similar situations as the Joker, they can act violently because it is justifiable. In the movie, Arthur is seen to be laughing while murdering people or reacting very casually to brutality. The viewers are thus learning that this behavior is acceptable, and that desensitization of this violence is okay to possess.
In the study, "Cool, callous and in control: superior inhibitory control in frequent players of video games with violent content," Dr. Laura Stockdale sought to measure the neural correlations between the inhibition of emotional response in regard to implicit attention to emotion. She conducted a study in which they measured the P100 and N200/P300 event-related potentials (ERPs) for empathetic emotional responses in frequent video game players vs non-frequent video game players. Her study found that P100 amplitude- which is induced in response to happy facial expressions- was decreased, indicating a low empathy response in frequent violent video game players. These players also had a decrease in N200/P300 amplitude, which indicated that these subjects recruited less cognitive responses in order to inhibit a behavior. Overall, these findings indicate that those that play video games with a lot of graphic brutality have decreased emotional output in empathy due to a decrease in neural correlates.
These two articles go hand in hand and give us a glimpse into how entertainment can really affect us. While there is an abundant amount of research regarding increased future violent behaviors due to an escalated exposure to media violence, there is no solid cause and effect seen between the two. However, as Dr. Stockdale and Abraar Karan have shown, there is some sort of impact on the brain and on behavior due to media brutality. I definitely have a decreased sensitization to violence because the other day I was watching Django Unchained with my mom and she cringed at every remotely violent scene, but I did not even flinch. While this desensitization may not directly impact behavior, it can be detrimental to the society, especially in times where there is a growing number of school shootings, police brutality, and more. It is imperative to be aware of the violence and the horror of it on order to provide proper justice and recognition to the events that happened.
References:
Stockdale, L., Morrison, R. G., Palumbo, R., Garbarino, J., & Silton, R. L. (2017). Cool, callous and in control: superior inhibitory control in frequent players of video games with violent content. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 12(12), 1869-1880.
Karan, Abraar. “Hollywood and Gun Violence.” Scientific American Blog Network, Scientific American, 15 Feb. 2020, blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/hollywood-and-gun-violence/.
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