Recently I was looking at articles on Indianexpress.com and I came across the article titled, “Mean World Syndrome.” In this article, a woman is looking for the pattern in people who commit violent crimes. Specifically, school shootings. They may look deep with in the person hoping to find the answers, but only finding more questions. People want to blame it on the media, the new theory is it’s the “mean world syndrome.” Kids see the violent crimes committed in video games, movies, news, everywhere in the media. They then live out the fantasy for themselves. What they see, becomes what they do.
Recently in class we have been discussing the Bobo doll experiment, conducted by Arthur Bandura in 1962. The test was to design the relationship between TV violence and child behavior. There were three groups. The first was in a playroom, with individual kids (3-5 yrs old) where they watched an adult abuse the Bobo doll. The second group of kids was divided by gender and watched a film of the same aggression of the Bobo doll. The third group of kids watched the same aggression, performed by a cartoon-like cat costume and placed in a artificial-looking setting. The control group does not watch anyone kicking crud out of Bobo. As a result of seeing the abuse done to the Bobo doll by adults, the kids pretty much did the same. Showing that what kids see, does have a direct affect on what they do.
So what does this matter? With all the cruelty going on in the world, he is not surprising that some people want answers. Although the Bobo Doll experiment we discussed in class can prove that what children see has a direct affect on what they do, there is always the exception. But, there is one thing that is certain, I am sure many people, especially the young should think about what they watch on TV, because sometimes it is challenging to keep fantasy and reality as two separate categories in our lives.
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