Passive mediums like television have greater effects on media users than video games

From television to video games it seems like violence is being featured more and more, but at what cost? A hot topic brought up a lot in today's "media friendly" society is how media is actually harming society and making us induce in more violent acts. Studies have already proven this to be true. In a study described in Converging Media, Albert Bandura shows through the "Bobo doll" lab that children who are exposed to violence are likely to repeat the behavior they have witnessed.  The real question is what has a greater effect, passive mediums like television, or highly interactive mediums like video games?

Video games are a form of highly interactive media violence but just because its more interactive doesn't mean it results in more violence compared to television. Kids know that video games are fake. In video games such as Call of Duty you can kill someone and then they come back to life with literally a click of a button. This may desensitize society to violence but it doesn't necessarily result in aggression.

Television is a completely different story. Humans become entrapped with storylines and sometimes don't even realize that the show they're watching is fake. There is a positive correlation between television-violence viewing and aggressive behavior. One reason for that, brought up in a Canadian opinion letter, is Emmy-award winning shows like The Sopranos and Dexter glorify violence and say that it's justifiable when trying to defeat the "bad guys". This attempt to justify violence of any kind is just not okay. It leads to misconceptions by real-life killers of who truly are the "bad guys" which ultimately leads to the deaths of many innocent people.

Television shows and movies aren't the only problem. An interesting article on nj.com brings up the point that news television stations also lead to violent acts. News stations constantly talk about crimes and violence because it attracts viewers. But that's the problem. Mass murderers are trying to outdo each other in hopes of becoming the next big "star". If less publicity were given to such events maybe that'd lower the likelihood of people doing it.

As stated before, an experiment conducted by Albert Bandura concluded that children are likely to imitate behaviors they witness. Another statistic in Converging Media states that by age twelve, the average American child will see 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence on television. Those two facts alone show the great effects passive mediums like television have over highly interactive mediums like video games.

Sources:
http://www.nj.com/times-opinion/index.ssf/2012/08/opinion_media_saturation_glori.html