Ever since discussion on Thursday, the topic we talked about, "Does television have an impact on a child's behavior in a negative way," has been bothering me. This is something that irks me a good deal. Watching violent television shows and playing violent video games does not make you more likely to become overtly aggressive. Yes, there are always the few exceptions to the rule, but there are exceptions to everything in life. In my opinion this is a classic case of availability heuristics. A good number of people think its true because they have heard a prolific story in the media about something along the same lines, linking the two things together. All of my friends, including me, and a good portion of the human population play or watches violent things. Each year the graphics become better and violence a touch more gruesome yet somehow violent crime rates have decreased significantly in the past decade. So why do so many people still link the two together? To me, this correlation does not make logical sense. There are much more plausible studies done on emotionally disturbed people and their predisposition to commit violent crimes than the ones done on this subject matter.
