Desensitization In Social Media Essay

Over the last decade school shootings have repeatedly filled the news. Everyone has been exposed to the violence of school shootings in some way. News about the violence covers social media and television for days after the attack. Each time a shooting occurs it occupies the news channels for about a week, people offer condolences on social media, but no impactful gun policy changes ever happen. Why is it that although we see the violence caused by guns, policy changes do not occur? In the wake of the most reason shoot at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where 17 people died this question continues to be relevant, although it is not a new problem. Since 1999, 150,000 students have experienced a shooting at their school (Cox, Washington Post, 2018). Repeated exposure to violence causes desensitization which is turn prohibits change. This essay will examine when desensitization occurs and who it affects by looking at studies in which people who have experienced violence answered various questions about their

2014). Desensitization occurs not only in children and not only over a long period of time. It does not take much time or even much violence for people to become desensitized to the amount of violence they experience (Mullin and Linz, 1995). In this particular study parents were exposed to clips of violence and asked to rate how appropriate they thought that clip would be for their children to watch. It was found that the more adults watched violent clips, the less critical they became of the violence. In the case of school shootings in America, the violence has been horrific, but it has also been frequent, which causes desensitization to the violence. When the parents become desensitized to violence, it encourages this same desensitization in children, creating a cycle of