Does violence on TV really teach kids to be violent in real life?
It certainly doesn t help. However, it appears that those most damaging aspects of violence on TV (or in movies, video games, and many other outlets) arise from the apparent lack of consequences for those inflicting violence. On TV people get shot and presumably die, but viewers are almost never shown the aftermath of violence, nor are the perpetrators punished. Kids who watch street violence as entertainment often become desensitized to real violence. In some cases, though, viewing violence might lead to GREATER sensitization. It is hard to imagine anyone walking out of Saving Private Ryan and wanting to play Army the way I and my childhood playmates did after watching The Green Beret. Viewing THIS sort of violence, with care taken to show its destructive power, most probably does not have the same sort of effects as watching violence implicitly glorified.
