Impact of modern technology

Depending on how it is used, modern technology has a significant impact on the lives of many people around the world. People who use social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, for example, spend a lot of time on their computers and phones interacting with their coworkers. Exposure to movies and images has a significant impact on how the human brain interprets emotional reactions. As a result, the scenes that people see can have an impact on their emotions, leading to illegal and harmful actions such as injuring others. More exposure to harsh situations in films and games has long-term consequences for viewers and should be avoided.The research was carried through a survey that consisted of 20 (10 males and 10 females) people drawn from families, friends, and classmates. It was hypothesized that watching aggressive videos leads to watching an aggressive video clip make individuals more aggressive. The results showed that individuals who engage in watching aggressive and violent videos and content become more aggressive in life.

Modern technology is shaping lives of many people in the globe depending on how they use it. For instance, individuals that use the socializing networks such as the Facebook are spending several hours on their computers and phones chatting with their friends. As a result, their behaviours are affected by the activities leading to poor communication, poor time management, and aggression among others. Online videos are accessible quite easily via the internet and several people especially the young generation are always watching all kinds of movies, violent content, and action cinemas, which can affect their living styles. According to research, people who watch violent and aggressive videos end up becoming violent and aggressive making it difficult to live peacefully with them (Violent Images ’Boost Teenage Aggression, 2017). However, my of the individuals affected are ones with a history of abrasive personality as they tend to justify the actions happening on the screens. Video games that depict violence can be very harmful especially to the young generation, as they tend to heighten their desire to behave in a similar way towards their colleagues.

According to an article by Keith Perry and Agency there is a link between X-rated films and violent video games since scientists found that the behavior of individuals exposed to violent and non-violent scenes behaved differently. The experiment examined the individuals by scanning the brains of two groups of people to find out the happenings as they watched violent images. According to another US research children that viewed violent scenes in video games, films, and televisions, show much aggressive behavior (Mahood and Hanus, 2017). Although the impact of violent imagery on television on the young generation has been debated for a long time, it has been extended to video games since they are also very common to the young people. Exposure to such images has a big effect on the way the brain tends to process emotional responses. Consequently, the scenes that people watch can influence their emotions and lead to unlawful and dangerous behavior. After watching such videos and programs for a long time people tend to experience fewer emotions thus becomes less sensitive. Consequently, they are likely to engage in more aggressive acts that may be harmful to others. Many of them accept violence and see it as something, which should be enjoyed by everyone (Rosen, 2010). The greatest challenge is that people tend to develop tolerance to the acts and scenes and any other kind of video becomes a source of their boredom. Exposure to violent media is a risk factor to developing aggressive behavior for the young people. Although there are other factors such as drug and alcohol abuse, family conflict, and other family issues, watching violent scenes can trigger aggressiveness and lead to violence especially in the young people. Parents have a role to control the materials watched by their children and ensure that they are not exposed to violent media. Although media technology has several benefits, it can compromise the character of young adults if not censured. Sometimes it may be difficult to monitor and control what children watch but limiting the time they are exposed to the contents can help. Teaching kids and youths valuable skills, researching about television shows, video games, and movies is a better way of understanding the nature of the content played. There is a great need to interact with children to help them make better choices in life (Troop-Gordon, Gordon, Vogel-Ciernia, Ewing Lee and Visconti, 2016). People that watch violent games may turn out to be murderers in future since the videos tend to incite them to violence. Viewing of violent videos can be said to be a social problem that needs to be addressed to ensure that fans do not get obsessed with violent scenes (Violent Images ’Boost Teenage Aggression, 2017). Since they trigger feelings of bravely, there is a likelihood of young people becoming hooligans and violent criminals in the future. Some may harm one another during play, as they tend to engage in fighting, pushing, and other physical activities that may lead to accidents. Continued exposure to such aggressive scenes in videos and games has long-lasting effects on the viewers thus should be avoided. Development of tolerance to such images is the greatest challenge since it is difficult to eliminate from someone’s mind. Although counseling may help, it may be quite tasking and costly because of the extent of the damage. The best thing is for parents to control the behavior of their kids and monitor the videos they watch and the games they play.

Exposure to violent games and other videos has a link with individual thinking about violence. Anticipatory emotions in people tend to influence behavior and they are likely to pursue them leading to dangerous behavior. Individuals who like and enjoy certain content in the media may utilize it more than those that have not interest in it (Hartmann, Möller and Krause, 2015). If they enjoy violent content, they are likely to show aggressiveness towards their colleagues. However, those that feel disgusted about watching virtual violence are likely to avoid hurting their colleagues. When watching violent games, the anticipatory emotions that arise include enjoyment and guilt in which males tend to enjoy non-interactive and interactive media violence compared to females. According to research males, anticipate more enjoyment and feel less guilty when watching violent video games thus may play violent games more often compared to females (Hartmann, Möller and Krause, 2015). Watching makes individuals less empathetic and tends to express themselves through violence towards their colleagues. Females have been found to be less empathetic although watching aggressive scenes affects them just as the males. Since males are less empathetic, they tend to be more violent since they have less feeling for their targets. Other individuals are influenced to engage in violence after watching aggressive content due to moral justification. This implies that engaging in physical aggression depends on the belief that engaging in it may bring a higher good to a person. This leads to moral justification of the violent actions by people as they morally justify physical violence. Moral disengagement behaviours in the young people is associated with playing of violent games such as the Grand Theft Auto III (Hartmann, Möller and Krause, 2015). Other people find gratitude in playing violent games and other content. This means that users admire certain qualities in the characters and males are likely to identify themselves with some violent actors compared to females. The aggression expressed may be verbal or physical, which are contributed by experience of anger and hostility. It is expected that males should engage in watching violent games and videos more than females since the former tends to enjoy the scenes a lot. Dealing with children and young adults who have experiences virtual violence may be difficult since they do not see any problem with playing such games.

Hypothesis

The hypothesis is “watching an aggressive video clip make individuals more aggressive”.

Method

The research was carried through a survey that consisted of 20 (10 males and 10 females) people drawn from families, friends, and classmates. The participants were aged between 14 and 17 years drawn randomly from 20 households and attending different schools. The survey consisted of two groups each with 10 participants required to answer questions about aggression with the media. In each group, 5 were females while 5 were males since the test was to investigate the reaction of both genders to aggressive movies.

Manipulation

The groups were presented with 15 questions in a questionnaire about aggression with the media for the first survey. The questions required the participants to give some answers in terms of yes/no, multiple-choice questions on a scale of 1-10 and some open-ended. The first group then watched an aggressive clip before taking the survey the second time. The second group was used as a control group and was not allowed to watch an aggressive video to allow comparison at the end of the experiment. The research hypothesizes that participants will change their answers and show more aggression after watching the clip.

Materials

The materials required included questionnaires, pens, video CD, and a CD player. The video took 30 minutes after which the group was allowed to fill the same questionnaires for the second time to compare with the first one.

Results

It was hypothesized that watching aggressive videos leads to watching an aggressive video clip make individuals more aggressive. The results showed that individuals who engage in in watching aggressive and violent videos and content become more aggressive in life. After an independent T-test was carried out, the percentage of individuals that showed positive results aggressiveness was 80 percent against 20 percent who showed less signs of violence. The percentage of males that showed aggressiveness was 95 percent against 90 percent for females revealing no significant difference in their behaviors towards aggression. A P-value was calculated for determining whether the study supported the hypothesis after comparing expected results with the Chi Square results. From the two groups in which one was allowed to watch an aggressive movie the results showed that those that watched became more aggressive. There answers supported that being exposed to violent videos and materials can increase violence in the viewers. The control group revealed that avoiding videos and scenes related to violence helps the young people to remain calm. Their responses showed that avoiding violent scenes and inciting materials reduces the chances of individuals becoming violent. The test involved a survey that involved two groups, one exposed to an aggressive video clip and the other as a control group.

Discussion

Given the hypothesis of the research, it was clear that exposure to aggressive videos and other media content has a positive effect on the aggressiveness of individuals. Those that watch violent and action-related content on television and other media tends to be more violent towards their colleagues (Troop-Gordon, Gordon, Vogel-Ciernia, Ewing Lee and Visconti, 2016). There was no significant difference between the behavior of females and males since both reacted in a similar way after viewing the clip. Their answers revealed a change in attitude towards others and aggressiveness due to suppressed emotions. This concurs with research by Perry Keith on the impact of viewing aggressive content by the young generation. Whenever, individuals are exposed to certain environments they tend to act in a manner that shows influence from their surroundings. Parents can rely the research finding to control the content their kids watch and discourage them from one that can harm their behaviror. The results supported the hypothesis of the research that watching aggressive content leads to aggressiveness in individuals. Both males and females were affected equally thus, restriction of watching such videos should be applied in equal measure for both genders.

The limitations of study include use of a small sample of 20 participants as a representative of the entire population. A sample of about 70 participants in which half of them can be experimental group and the other half as control can give results that are more reliable on aggressiveness. Another limitation is that the experiment was carried once and on clip was watched, which may not have a big effect on the participants. Exposing participants to aggressive content several times such as five times can solve the issue. If the problems are addressed clearly, the accuracy of the results will be greatly improved. Having a larger group participating in the experiment reduces the error in the estimates and enables a researcher to make a good conclusion. The research was effective in making the conclusion that watching aggressive content lads to aggressiveness in individuals.

References

Hartmann, T., Möller, I. and Krause, C., 2015. Factors Underlying Male and Female use of Violent Video Games. New Media & Society, 17(11), pp.1777-1794.

Mahood, C. and Hanus, M., 2017. Role-Playing Video Games and Emotion: How Transportation Into the Narrative Mediates the Relationship between Immoral Actions and Feelings of Guilt. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 6(1), p.61.

Perry, K. (2017). Watching Violent Films does Make People more Aggressive, Study Shows. Telegraph.Co.Uk. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11087683/Watching-violent-films-does-make-people-more-aggressive-study-shows.html.

Rosen, L. D. (2010). Rewired: Understanding the Igeneration and the Way they Learn.

Macmillan.

Troop-Gordon, W., Gordon, R.D., Vogel-Ciernia, L., Ewing Lee, E. and Visconti, K.J., 2016. Visual Attention to Dynamic Scenes of Ambiguous Provocation and Children’s Aggressive Behavior. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, pp.1-16.

Violent Images ’Boost Teenage Aggression (2017). BBC News. BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/health-11570090.