Since the birth of the Internet back in 1983 we’ve seen a rise of issues involving younger generations and their seemingly lack of empathy and concern when it comes to interacting with any sort of social media app and real life tragedies. With live streams and videos depicting the aftermath of wars, protests, and accidents surfacing the internet they become easily accessible by teenagers and younger children who are granted unlimited internet access. Of course what children and teenagers are shown on the Internet all depends on their algorithm and the type of content they consume and may not be related to wars, protests and accidents but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t any type of harassment or hate speech that may be found in comment sections of videos they watch. On the contrary it’s very common practice for people to spew hate and violence on social media platforms because they’ve grown comfortable with sitting behind a screen with no consequences linked to their actions. This may be linked with the growing aggression and apathetic behavior displayed in younger people today.

Based on a study done by kidshealth.org it’s estimated that the average American child will see roughly 200,000 violent acts on TV and media by the time they reach age 18. In 2004 a study was conducted revolving around children and their video game intake. It was found that 52% of children ages 8-18 years old played roughly 49 minutes a day.  However today the average amount of media consumed by teenagers and kids is roughly 5 hours per day with 60% reporting that they have low parenting monitoring and an even poorer established relationship with parents, all information was provided by the American Psychological Association.

This has become an ongoing problem within our nation and one that isn’t always widely recognized. Desensitization lurks around every corner of the Internet and only grows stronger every time we turn on our phones and switch on our T.V.s  for ourselves and our children. What seems like a regular and harmless superhero movie with the bad guy being taken down by the hero in a swoop of victory plays a much bigger role in your children and yourself than you may think.