children who are exposed to interactive video games are actively engaged in the vicarious perpetration of violence through this medium (Ivory 3). In fact, as early as 1982, the then-U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop had expressed his concern about the possible effects of video games in which children "are into the games, body and soul—everything is zapping the enemy" (qtd. in Scott 121).
While there is little question that the media play a prominent role in children's lives and contain significant violence in their content, the question that still needs to be addressed is whether the media have a direct impact on children's behavior. In order to address this question, various theoretical perspectives and research studies, which have been conducted in the last two decades, will be examined and analyzed.
One of the key concerns about the influence of media on children behavior is whether "viewing violence in the media makes children and adolescents more violent" (Cantor "Effects of Media Violence on Aggression, Desensitization, and Interpersonal Hostility"). Cantor further clarified the issue with the following statement:
The question, is not… whether media violence causes violence, but whether viewing violence contributed to the likelihood that someone will commit violence or increases the severity of violence when it's committed ("Effects of Media Violence on Aggression, Desensitization, and Interpersonal Hostility").
According to Cantor, media violence exerts a direct impact on children's behavior, in terms of their level of aggression in a number of ways. First, children behave in a violent fashion after viewing media violence "through imitation or social learning" (Cantor "Effects of Media Violence on Aggression, Desensitization, and Interpersonal Hostility"). As psychological research has demonstrated, young children are prone to imitate words and actions from television. In response to this state...