What do you pick when someone asks, “What is your favorite movie?” One person might pick a romantic comedy while another might pick an action movie. The mechanism that draws everyone in to fiction is conflict. Conflict is what drives a story and makes it interesting. The characters are presented with a problem, and they have to figure out how to solve that problem. Since conflict is the foundation of fictional stories, a lot of them contain one crucial component: violence. Violence is an indispensable element to many engaging tales. Throughout history, violence and heated struggle have uniquely defined disputes between nations of the world. Many kinds of conflict simply cannot exist without violence. Many critics say that media violence causes violence within modern societies. These critics do not appear to notice that if violence was removed from all forms of media, we would not have some of the most influential novels we have today.
Violence has been a crucial element to fiction for thousands of years. There is no definitive proof that media violence is the sole cause of societal violence. Most of the arguments against violent media involve correlational studies. Countless people use these studies to convince the masses that violent content is destructive. In introductory level psychology classes, professors drill the phrase, “correlation does not equal causation,” into their students’ heads. Correlation only helps assist the experimenters find out where they need to look next for a possible cause. Even when someone considers the correlational studies, the evidence is inconsistent (Research). Some people play violent video games their whole lives and are totally nonviolent. Cultures like Japan are very open about violence and taboo subjects, yet, if someone were to visit Japan, they would find that the Japanese people are generous, peaceful, and diplomatic. Some critics use a change in brainwaves caused by violent video games as a viable reason to ban violent media. These critics are among those who attempt to use correlation to dictate cause; it doesn’t. Some studies have showcased that playing violent video games decreases brain activity in the left hemisphere of the brian. These changes were not proven to have a significant effect on the players, nor did they last for any noteworthy period of time (Gordon).
Many school shooters played violent video games before they hurt anyone, but ultimately, this correlation means very little. Again, it is only a correlation. Proponents of media censorship ignore any genetic predisposition or any other substantial factors in a school shooter’s behavior. They could have already been violent, so, they played violent video games to express their violence. They would have ended up shooting up an establishment regardless of whether they played video games or not. Some school shooters were passive, polite, and tremendously intelligent before they ended up committing an act of terrorism. Could violent media have influenced these school shooters? It is possible, but consuming violent media was not the sole cause for their violent acts. There must have been some other pre-existing condition that caused them to act out (Grimes, Bergen, and Anderson). Those who demonize violent media ignore an essential factor: parental influence. Parents are supposed to be regulating what their child does. They are supposed to guide their child in the right direction and to bring them away from something that may cause them harm. Nowadays, parents are just sitting in their living rooms watching television while letting their child play an ‘M’ rated game. They do not put even a second thought in to how that media might affect their child.
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Critics of violent media remain silent on this issue. If a child has some kind of predisposition or psychological issue that may be exacerbated by violent media, it is the parents’ job to protect them from that influence, just as it is their job to protect their child from anything else that may be harmful. Parents should pay more attention to what their children are watching, not voting for the government to do their job for them (Thierer). All in all, the media violence debate is much like the vaccine debate. The proponents of violent media have experimentally based arguments with a heap of evidence, and the opponents have very little at their disposal. They continue to ignore any real factors that might be involved in societal violence and point to vague correlations. They disregard the fact that violence and death have been a part of cultures for thousands of years. Two hundred years ago, death was normal at all stages of life. Their viewpoints are based on unjustifiable emotions and condemnable ignorance.
