Our media today is saturated with tons and tons of violence ranging from action movies and games, to horrific acts and gore in the horror genre and alike. It is with no surprise that many are worried about the effects violence can have on the young population, especially children. While studies have shown that violence in TV shows and movies and video games have a correlation to aggressive behavior, many have refuted this by saying that there are not enough studies and that this is more complicated then simple correlation.

Many have attributed to violent media influencing very young people into committing more aggressive acts, decreased empathy, and decreased reactions to violent acts either in media or in real life. They always conclude that content matters most importantly. However, there have not been many empirical studies, as this is a recent phenomenon. Many have refuted this statement using this fact and a few others.

Many have criticized these studies for being too simplistic and bias.

Firstly, some have criticized these studies for not controlling other variables such as mental health, home life, general stress, etc. if they cannot determine these variables, then attributing these childrens violence tendencies to violent media is plain wrong, and the results are not conclusive.

Secondly, there have not been many studies that have tested this thoroughly, and even less so that have had a good amount of subjects to study.

And lastly, considering the state of media right now, its hard to determine if some studies are completely biased or not. With news sites promoting their own agendas and spinning stories, studies are mostly funded by these sites to promote a certain outlook instead of finding actual credible results.