My Paper

Violent media is one of the issues in the modern world, where parents, teachers and the society in general are increasingly worried over the effect of violent media on the developing children. For instance, the society has fears that children who are exposed to violent media will grow to be violent people, giving way to a violent society. However, Gerald Jones, in his argument ‘violent media is good for kids’, says that in contrary to what the society believes, or is made to believe, violent media builds strong, courageous and effective group in the society. In addition, violent media helps the children learn the reality within our society, which is ridden with violence in several ways.

The critical analysis

While it appears that Gerald Jones is wrong in his arguments, there is an aspect of truth at least from his case studies he took in his research. In addition, while no one would support exposure of the young children to violence and violent scenes, not at least in a stable civilization like America, it is quite evident that violent media provides the children and the young people in the society with certain lessons in life. It becomes clear that the children that Jones took as a sample in his research and presented in the essay are an indication of the contrasting aspects of what our society believes. For example, Jones talks of his own childhood life, in which the parents and the teachers instilled fear in him, separating him from the reality and the age mates. In the name of educating the social ethics and morals in our children, we tend to alleviate them from the reality, which actually makes the children develop a characteristic of poor perception of the reality within their society. Consider the case of Jones in his childhood; the mother and the teachers made assumptions that the world or rather the society is perfect- that there is no violence, and if it exists, the children should not be exposed or made to learn of its existence. Further, they...