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Wednesday, August 20, 2014
No Feelings?
Hello! I would like to bring up the topic of how television is affecting us viewers. Is television desensitizing us? I am in between yes and no. This summer I started watching the television show Dexter. I am absolutely obsessed with it. The show is about a man named Dexter who works with Miami Metro Homicide as a blood spatter analysis. Dexter lives a double life. He kills people. Dexter kills people who have committed crimes like rape and murder and gotten away with it. Now I am not going to go into detail on how he kills his victims (you can look that up for yourself), but the show is very graphic. I can watch these murders and feel nothing at all at the time, but I do get a little nauseous at the sight of excessive blood. The last few weeks I have woken up after horrible nightmares at about 2 AM due to the show. So I want to know your opinion, is television desensitizing us?
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I think television and video games are desensitizing us although maybe not as dramatically as some people think. We have so much technology available to us that can show violence and we don't even realize it half the time. If we compare ourselves to older generations I think we would be able to see a notable difference. I remember watching an episode on TV with my dad once about a very bloody and crude viking war. He told me he felt a bit nauseated afterwards while I didn't really feel anything at all. Maybe technology is desensitizing us and most of us don't really notice it.
ReplyDeleteI've seen Dexter and it really is graphic at times but I love that show so much. Anyway, I feel like in a way, shows and video games are desensitizing us, but for the most part, maybe we don't get bothered because we know it isn't real. I guess a part of it is also from having it around us all the time, so we don't really care for it anymore. But I'm pretty sure if we see it in real life, we're going to want to upchuck our previous meal.
ReplyDeleteIn a way yes. But keeping in mind that we are also very aware that these shows are fake, we don't feel much sympathy because the people aren't real. You know that feeling you get when a movie says "Based on a true event / life / story" and your heart drops and you just sit there thinking, "Oh man" and then the movie actually affects you? It's because we know this stuff really happened to someone. Also, as Mary said, things are a lot different when you experience them first-hand and not through television or the news.
ReplyDeleteOh man, the stories I could tell on this subject.
ReplyDeleteI was protected by my parents when I was little. I was raised on Nintendo, which in general is a very family friendly game corp. I cried and cried everytime something bad happened to me or someone I knew or saw on a screen. Then, in 2009-ish, I started playing COD for the first time. I was a bit scared and squirmish at the sight of those dead bodies, and so I resorted to sniper camping ('twas such a little n00b back in the day). Then, with the help of my friends (thanks Tony), I got over myself and went machine-gun wild for the first time. It felt great. But at the same time, I felt something leave me. I had tasted blood. There was no going back to my ignorant, peaceful self.
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ReplyDeleteI think that in some aspects, television does desensitize us. Especially video games. As Josh was saying, he was very squeamish the first time he played Call of Duty. He eventually got used to it and had no problem spraying bullets and walking over dead bodies (in the video games, of course). I think that this is somewhat of a bad thing because it will cause children to become much more violent. On the other hand, it could help prepare people for a world that is not always rated PG.
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