Mental health professionals have long debated about the impact of viewing violent media. An article published February 20, 2009 in Medical News Today examines this issue. The article reports on two unpublished studies conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan and the Iowa State University professor Craig Anderson. In the first study, the researchers studied, "...320 college students who played either a violent or a nonviolent video game for approximately 20 minutes. A few minutes later, they overheard a staged fight that ended with the "victim" sustaining a sprained ankle and groaning in pain." The results of the study were disturbing. "People who had played a violent game took significantly longer to help the victim than those who played a nonviolent game - 73 seconds compared to 16 seconds. People who had played a violent game were also less likely to notice and report the fight. And if they did report it, they judged it to be less serious than did those who had played a nonviolent game." In the second study, the researchers studied, "..162 adult moviegoers. The researchers staged a minor emergency outside the theater in which a young woman with a bandaged ankle and crutches "accidentally" dropped her crutches and struggled to retrieve them. The researchers timed how long it took moviegoers to retrieve the crutches. Half were tested before they went into the theater, to establish the helpfulness of people attending violent vs. nonviolent movies. Half were tested after seeing either a violent or a nonviolent movie." The results of this study were also disturbing. "Participants who had just watched a violent movie took over 26 percent longer to help than either people going into the theater or people who had just watched a nonviolent movie." The implication of these two studies is significant for parents of young children. First, parents of young or adolescent children should carefully monitor and limit the amount of time that their children watch violent media. Second, public health professionals should make greater efforts to educate the public about the risks of children and adults watching violent media.
The Bottom Line: The results of these studies strongly suggest that watching violent media increases the risk that the viewers will be desenitized to the pain of others.
Source: Orginial Article
Dr. Jeffrey Speller
Dr. Tanya Korkosz
Psychopharmacology Associates of New England
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