Explaining Media's Effects

Third, it is likely that TV produces desensitization to emotions and events—a gradual dulling of response that causes more intense stimulation to be needed to produce a reaction. As children get more used to seeing violence on television, they are less shocked by violence, more accepting of it, and more likely to see it as an acceptable way to behave. Desensitization happens to individuals, but it can also happen to a culture as a whole. For example, think about changes over time in audience reaction to movie violence. The 1903 short film The Great Train Robbery features a close-up of a cowboy shooting a gun directly into the camera. "The first audiences who saw the film reacted by running out of the theater screaming" (Bushman & Anderson, 2001, p. 478). What would it take for to day's movie audiences to have the same reaction?

Finally, until children become desensitized, however, a media stimulus can increase their level of arousal. That is, it can stir them up emotionally and physiologically. Heightened arousal can continue after the media experience ends and can cause the child to react more strongly (positively or negatively) to whatever happens next. For example, a boy in a state of heightened arousal after playing a violent video game may react with much greater anger and aggression when his parents tell him it's time for bed than he would have otherwise (as we know from hard experience!).

When we were teens, our parents despaired over the terrible influence of hard rock music and sci-fi movies like Star Wars. In our parents' generation, Elvis was evil. For today's parents, the worry is violent video games and the Internet. Yet in each generation, most children emerge intact and healthy. There is no question that media have an influence—why else would companies continue to pour money into advertising their products in the media? But as systems theories of child development remind us, media constitute one of several important influences. Parenting practices, the overall culture, and individual child factors interact with the types of media and media content children regularly experience to influence complex characteristics and behaviors like reading, aggression, prejudice, and helping others. It simply makes sense for parents and other adults to monitor the amount and content of the media children are using. Adults must think carefully about the kinds of influences children are exposed to on a regular basis and make conscious decisions based on the individual children involved. It isn't television per se that has positive or negative effects, but what is portrayed and how families handle it: "The medium is not the message. The message is the message!" (Anderson et al., 2001, p. 134).