from CBS DC

Psychologist: YouTube Has Become Tutorial For Kids On How To Act Violent

by Regina F. Graham

WASHINGTON (CBSDC) – Researchers and psychologists have long questioned what kind of effects violent television shows, song lyrics and video games have had on audiences throughout the years. Now, those same questions are being applied to videos featuring violent attacks and fights on sites like YouTube.

Clinical social worker and psychotherapist Laura Miller explained that video sharing sites like YouTube and WorldStarHipHop are allowing users to receive unlimited attention.

“I do think there is something about the unlimited attention that the Internet and specifically social media offer youth today that provides an incentive to defy rules and morality in the pursuit of a certain kind of power through broadcasting violent and demeaning behavior towards others,” Miller told CBSDC. “But I don’t think that YouTube and other social media sites can really be blamed for this.”

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