Internet Content, Effects of Violent

Many academicians and laypeople alike are worried that there are negative ramifications to the violence that is often encased in digital entertainment. This issue received national attention after the 1999 school shootings at Columbine High School near Littleton, Colorado. The investigation of the shootings revealed that the shooters had been heavy users of violent video games and websites. Many worried that exposure to such violence leads to desensitization in children. These worries are not unjustified; research has suggested that exposure to violent content impairs emotional regulation that would normally allow a child to trigger an empathetic response. The lack of an empathetic response increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior.

Children become desensitized when they begin to perceive violence as mundane and inevitable rather than uncommon and unlikely (Slater, 2003). Once [Page 207]this belief is held, it is likely that children will find no need to censor their violent behavior. Desensitization is thought to occur as the result of the lack of consequences in violent media. An increase in tolerance for violent behavior was shown in Ronald S. Drabman and Margaret Hanratty Thomas’s 1974 study and was later confirmed in 1994 by Fred Molitor and Kenneth William Hirsch.

Violent entertainment content does not affect everyone equally. In the work of Michael Slater, some adolescents were found to be more inclined to seek out violent content and were subsequently affected by it more so than others. Adolescents who lacked ties with socialization agents such as school, family, and peers tended to gravitate toward peer groups with deviant norms. The adolescent may respond to the perceived alienation by these groups with anger, which has also been found to predict deviant behavior. Traits, along with sensation seeking (i.e., the need for novel experiences), can be representative of social dysfunction. It is speculated that these traits, along with alienation, may lead adolescents to seek out violent content. Interactive computer-mediated violence may even serve as a way for an adolescent to act out violent fantasies on the alienating parties.

This entry discusses various types of violent Internet content, including gaming, pornography, cyber-aggression, and pro-suicide content, and their effects.