by Rebecca Florido

Created on: June 22, 2010   Last Updated: June 24, 2010

You have children running around in schools with Hi-Point 995 Carbine 9mm semi-automatic rifles and 12-gauge pump-action shotguns. Could this be due to desensitization? Desensitization is a mental process that helps to explain a viewers emotional reactions to media violence such as the NEWS, video games, etc. Personally I would not want to be in Wal-Mart enjoying my shopping day and all of a sudden a fifteen year old kid comes strolling through with a bomb big enough to explode half the United States all because he was going through a desensitization process due to watching the United States execute a man on live television.

Columbia University Medical Center did a study that showed the right lateral orbitofrontal cortex which has formerly been linked with the ability to not be able to control many different behaviors which include reactive aggression. The CUMC used Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging to prove that watching violent programs could possibly cause parts of the brain that restrains hostile activity to become less dynamic. 

Watching acts of violence could generate people to portray less capability in dominating their own aggressive behavior thus provoking themselves or others to commit crimes in which they would have never done. With the studies that have been brought forth, I have no clue as to why we continue to feed people the images of violent crimes such a murder since it apparently helps to contribute to them.

As you grow up you learn morals and how to shape your actions towards others by the people you are around which include watching television. Now days a person watches television 4 to 6 hours a day, how could this not be a powerful influence on our behavior? 

As a parent I take certain measures to keep violent shows down to a minimum in the household to include even areas such as racial or sexual stereotyping. It's hard to cut out all violent programs since America feeds off of bad behavior but regardless of the content I moderate the amount of time spent watching TV. I try my best to influence more beneficial activities such as reading, playing with friends, and participating in sports.

Just as a side note: ABC during 1998-2006 began to experience a climbing rate of violent content that was exposed on their show which at the time was averaged to be .93 instances of violence per hour during prime time.  By the year of 2006 the news station was averaging 3.80 instances of violence per hour. That's an increase of 309%! With that said, NO I do not believe we should execute people on television.
 

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