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Are MySpace and YouTube desensitizing kids to violence?



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Recently, there has been coverage of a video showing six teenage girls beating up another girl, which they recorded to post on MySpace and YouTube. The Sheriff and parents of the victim claim that MySpace and YouTube are desensitizing kids to violence.
fmanjoo

13 responses // Are MySpace and YouTube desensitizing kids to violence?

  • The internet has nothing to do with kids and violence.
    Kids are dumb and would do anything to be popular.
    Violence was never the answer and it never will be.
    sarahjesse
  • Youtube and Myspace made your kids beat up my kid?

    Hmm.
    aschneider
  • its interesting that people try to blame different mediums of expression for desensitizing people to violence, but never talk about the fact that the world itself is very violent...there's always some war or genocide going on somewhere that the news media essentially approves of by allowing political & military leaders to justify what's going on to the public.

    maybe we should stop blaming art for violence & start to take a look @ the way that the military industrial complex has dominated pop culture since wwi. just try to watch anything geared toward teens & 20somethings & not be assaulted by ads for the u.s. military.

    people go to work building bombs, bullets, & other war machines everyday to support their families, but never make the connection to how what they do destroys a lil bit of what we try to pass off as civilization everyday.
    blackdaylight
  • The tendency to always blame media for the faults of children is not new. . . besides blaming the internet for desensitizing children is just an excuse for bad parenting.
    snic
  • In the movie never back down the teenagers keept fighting and putting the videos of their fights on youtube and it made them popular

    Wow nice words you all ilke that idea about living in the industrial military era what influence does that hve on us?
    DivinePerspective
  • Interesting topic...I think the pressing issue with myspace and youtube is the isolation it causes. I think it would be interesting to shadow an avid myspace user and set that against someone who never uses it. I'm guessing we would see a vast difference in life styles.
    SChema
  • I don't know if MySpace and YouTube will deter the attacks. The resulting indictments might simply deter attackers from recording and posting their activities.
    jeischeid
  • I think that kids want to be popular and would do whatever it takes to get it. It comes at a cost of something or someone. So now people are blaming MySpace or Youtube. "Never blame yourself, always blame someone else."
    Milu82
  • myspace and youtube are tools of documenting what people are doing. They are like a mirror. They reflect to us what we are. These places in cyberland, just like current are non biased, and only show what the people using them are. The kids are at fault, maybe the parents have some responsibility for raising assholes. We are responsible for our own actions. The kids did it, they are at fault ...
    TheCocoon
  • I feel like parents need to be supervising their kids..how can this happen. I do not think the internet is to blame. I feel like its a combination of things that are going wrong. Do children have morals now a days? ...what are schools teaching..are they up to date with technology?
    JenIllescas
  • Is this really a case of kids "suddenly" turning violent -- or more a case of oblivious adults "suddenly" realizing what has long been going on under their noses?

    Are we asking the right questions?

    Is high school bullying unusual? No. We don't need to go very far back to see the Columbine killers, the Virgina Tech shooting spree and on and on and on.

    So why does the media find THIS incident so shocking?

    Are people shocked because they were girls? Because the home this video was shot in seemed (somewhat) middle class?

    Would we be as shocked if the participates were teenage boys? If the home the video was shot in was a poor trailer? Or if the participants were black?

    What does that say about us if we answer no?

    Asking if Youtube "desensitives" teenagers from violence seems like an odd question to ask because in poor neighborhoods where there is an extreme level of youth violence they generally don't have access to the internet .

    People have been looking for the "cause" of violence for decades. First it was comic books, then Tom & Jerry cartoons, then rap lyrics, then music videos -- now it's YouTube.

    I think poverty, broken homes, drugs and living in dangerous neighborhoods contribute more to violent behaviour than YouTube.
    crob80227
  • Violence wears many faces. Why is it surprising that people use YouTube and MySpace as instruments of violence? If they had used a baseball bat, would the baseball bat have 'made them' do it?

    Blame is about avoiding holding perpetrators responsible.

    To me, this violence is the logical extension of the social manipulation bullying that girls do (as explained in the book, Odd Girl Out). It 'shocks' only those who have participated in turning a blind eye to all the girl-gang-up behavior that has injured so many other girls growing up.
    Fenlon
  • you want to know whats wrong with teenagers. Parents have decided that they are going to shelter ther children from real life situations, instead of teaching them to be human and to respect humanity. There are alot of kids whos parents got pregnant young, just like today, which means they weren't ready to be somone's parent. And the cycle starts and will never end.
    danitassin

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