The scene was outside an internet café in Tmn Desa, Kuala Lumpur on a late Saturday afternoon. I was waiting in my car, lazily watching this excited group of teenagers, girls and boys chattering and bantering or so it seemed outside the cafe. Then they all burst into a Happy Birthday song. How chweeet..I thought! But suddenly something happened, they all surrounded the birthday boy and started hammering him from all angles. That poor kid was trying to shield himself to no vail. I sat up immediately, what??!! I opened the car door, I thought as a responsible citizen (and all, you know), I should do something. Just about then it stopped! Every one was laughing hysterically and the battered kid was trying to his best to smile. I was completely baffled. Then one of the girls walked toward me and I quickly wound down the windscreen and asked her what happened.
“Oh, that! Nothing la! It was his birthday!”
“So, you guys, chose to beat him up for his birthday?”
And she said, “Auntie, (I suddenly felt so, so very old..how long have i dropped off the face of this earth again???) this is normal lah now! It’s cool…that’s how we celebrate birthday now! You know, test power!!” She was grinning at me and seeing my clueless face, "Relak la, auntie!!" I let her go. I need a chill pill...
Where have I been between my teenhood 20 years ago and now? But back then, even going for a movie is a yearly affair. It just didn’t make sense to my 70's brain. Then i started thinking 'current' a bit.
Has it got something to do with the macho image portrayed by video game superheroes? There is only one message in most of these popular video games…KILL. It become almost like a mantra repeated over and over till the player goes in some kind of trance and gets glued there for hours. And latest technology makes it almost virtual reality. Young subconscious minds just lap it up. And killing becomes an amusement.
In a study conducted at the Cyclotron Unit of Hammersmith Hospital in London, Dr Pail Grasby determined that playing video grams triggers the release of dopamine in the brain and doubles during playtime. This is roughly same with the injection of amphetamines or attention-deficit disorder drug, Ritalin.
Violence and harm is glorified on TV, media, computer games and internet. “It shapes their reality. It can set their expectations. It can define their values, their behaviour.”
-Jim Steyer, author of The Other Parent, on how violence in media affects children.
(Well, you just have to step into any cyber café and see how they behave and language used can make even the most liberal of us cringe.)
Our children are bombarded by messages and images from the media-messages about how to behave, what choices to make and what to think. Children even try to emulate what they learn from television, video games and internet. They are more susceptible than adults because they haven’t developed good judgment or the ability to process the information given. The media is teaching children that violence can be safe, fun and harmless, which we know it isn’t.
So what is the effect of this violent media upbringing on our children as they start to lead the world tomorrow?
Dr Young, an expert cyber psychologist and author of “Caught in the Net” the first recovery book for Internet addiction states that warning signs of extreme internet and video games influence:-
· Consistently doesn’t listen to authority figures
· Insensitivity to feeling and rights of others
· Mistreat people or use violence to solve problems
· Often claims life is unfair to him
· Start doing poorly in school and often skips class
· Joins a gang and gets involved in violence as fun
· Substance abuse like drugs and alcohol
A recent study found that today parents spend 40% less time with their children do to the rat-race then the older generation. On average, parents spend 17 hours a week with their children compared to a 40 hours average a week the child spends with all forms of media.
Top 10 Steps for Parents from The Other Parent by James P.Steyer
1. Establish good media habits and values at an early age with you child.
set limits on usage and help them to choose suitable content.
2. Location, location, location: No TV or internet child’s room
3. Set a media diet and stick to it.
4. Teach your child to ask permission to use it
5. Watch with you kids to supervise them
6. Set clear rules regarding use in other home
7. Have paediatrician or doctors review child’s media use as annual check up
8. Teach media literacy, ability to access, analyze, evaluate and process
information
9. Read to you children and share positive experience
10. Switch the dial to ‘off’.
1 comment:
This is nothing, the beating. U must c wat happens in secreat societies. blood and other things.
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