USA - I am increasingly concerned about the scale and nature of the violence on our TV screens – even the Christmas viewing didn’t provide respite. As I flicked through multiple channels, I was shocked at the levels of murders and deaths, whether real-life crime, crime series or films, and how much of the violence depicted was sadistic and gratuitous. And it’s not just TV: video games and social media are pumping this violence out too.
While there are no conclusive studies that violence on the screens leads to violence in society, there are none that firmly contradict it either. Some point to it leading to an increase in aggression levels and a hard-hitting study found a correlation between media violence and mental health with increased anxiety levels, as viewers of violence saw the world as a scarier place.
Interestingly, new research from the University of Maryland showed that violence is one element that most effectively hooks in an audience. It also suggested on-screen violence had increased threefold: that there are more violent TV shows, that content is becoming more violent, and that violence is a playing a bigger part in films than ever before.
It is ironic that on one hand we have become so sensitive that police are investigating non-crime hate incidents and people are being disciplined for using the wrong pronouns, while on the other, an extraordinary amount of violence can be pumped out daily on every media outlet and very few steps are taken to curtail it.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this section are not our own, unless specifically stated, but are provided to highlight what may prove to be prophetically relevant material appearing in the media.
“Just what is an APOSTLE?”
Today we find the Church of God in a “wilderness of religious confusion!”
The confusion is not merely around the Church – within the religions of the world outside – but WITHIN the very heart of The True Church itself!
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