Essay on Violent Media Is Good For Kids

Essay on Violent Media Is Good For Kids

Violent media is one of the issues in the modern world, where parents, teachers and the society in general are increasingly worried over the effect of violent media on the developing children. For instance, the society has fears that children who are exposed to violent media will grow to be violent people, giving way to a violent society.

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However, Gerald Jones, in his argument ‘violent media is good for kids’, says that in contrary to what the society believes, or is made to believe, violent media builds strong, courageous and effective group in the society.

In addition, violent media helps the children learn the reality within our society, which is ridden with violence in several ways.

The critical analysis
While it appears that Gerald Jones is wrong in his arguments, there is an aspect of truth at least from his case studies he took in his research.

In addition, while no one would support exposure of the young children to violence and violent scenes, not at least in a stable civilization like America, it is quite evident that violent media provides the children and the young people in the society with certain lessons in life.

It becomes clear that the children that Jones took as a sample in his research and presented in the essay are an indication of the contrasting aspects of what our society believes.

For example, Jones talks of his own childhood life, in which the parents and the teachers instilled fear in him, separating him from the reality and the age mates. In the name of educating the social ethics and morals in our children, we tend to alleviate them from the reality, which actually makes the children develop a characteristic of poor perception of the reality within their society.

Consider the case of Jones in his childhood; the mother and the teachers made assumptions that the world or rather the society is perfect- that there is no violence, and if it exists, the children should not be exposed or made to learn of its existence.

Further, they assumes that the children will never encounter or be involved in a violent scene, which means that they cannot defend themselves, having been taught to either avoid violence or walk away from the scene.

This is quite wrong because at one time in life, each person is likely to encounter such as scenario, where self-defense or an intervention is necessary. While we may think that Jones is exaggerating his views on his life, there is some truth in that the contemporary world is quite complex, with cases of violence reported each day in our lives.

According to the essay, Jones attempts to show that the modern form of violence is highly complex, with children taking part in shooting. For example, the ever increasing cases of school and neighborhood shooting is a calling to the parents, teachers and the society to consider other methods of avoiding the excessive loss of life among the kids in such cases.

For example, it is clear that we cannot assume that by just involving the security to minimize the children’s access to weapons will solve the issue. It is important to remember that the children gain such weapons from the adults, and thus eliminating the vice is quite challenging and may take timed.

Meanwhile, Jones seems to provide an alternative- teaching our children how to solve such cases through the tactics they learn from violent games and media. In this way, the typed self-defense learned from the violent media may prove effective for the children to handle such cases as attempted school and neighborhood violent and shooting.

Social competition within our society is real and evident. Right from preschool to adulthood, there is an aspect of competition for the scanty resources. According to Jones, his son turned from a harmless and fearful child to a bloodthirsty dinosaur with self-determination in school and at home. The kids change was brought in by the exposure to media violence. Jones has used excessively fear-instilling words like ‘blood thirsty dinosaur’, which is wrong as far as convincing parents and teachers to allow their children watch at least some violent scenes.

However, the most important this here is to consider the fact that his child did not become ‘blood thirsty’ in a manner that calls for action; rather he became courageous enough to face the difficulties he was afraid. For instance, he is able to grow to a brave kid as indicated by his ability to join his friends in climbing trees. This is important because children games aid their development. In addition, boyhood games need courage and instill confidence as well as independence among the kids.

Gerard Jones seems to emphasize on the development and utilization of talents among the children. A child talented in cartoons, video writing and storytelling in form of violent scenes cannot be denied the right to discover, improve and utilize the talent in a manner that helps them to grow and achieve their goals in life.

For example, consider the case of the girl who wrote on violent heroes. Though not violent in nature, the girl is gifted in the field, and any case of denying her the right to improve her talent is wrong as far as human rights and the ethics in childcare is concerned.

Therefore, although Jones is wrong in trying to prove that violent media is good for all the children; we need to review our thoughts and perceptions so that we can realize the truth in the contrasting ideologies.