Social learning is a concept that gives reason as to why society is taken under the spell of any form of media and how we perceive it; because of overly explicit video games, such as Grand Theft Auto, young adults are prone to its intense violence, foul language, and the use of sex and drugs more than ever.
The theory of social learning is when the audience begins to imitate attitudes and human behaviors being portrayed most commonly found through television. Usually by this theory, society is fed different aspects of acting a certain way and imitating certain actions by which they are watching; the book explains that of Albert Bandura’s perfect example of social learning exhibited in the Bobo Doll experiment with children. In one part of the various routines, children are exposed to violence shown through the short skit; soon children began to fully imitate violent acts with the Bobo doll proving the aggressive response one inhibits when being exposed to such behavior. Because of this, children will go on to expressing their newly experienced human behavior by means of the social learning theory to where they don’t even need to think about it anymore, it becomes apart of their human nature.
For example, in the most popular video game, Grand Theft Auto, one of the many versions is, “The Ballad of Gay Tony.” In this video game, the entire storyline consists of intense violence as well as sex and drugs. As shown below in the promotion video, it’s about “ruling the town” which is what many villains or characters are destined to fulfill. The game is in fact both bloody and gory, young adults and surprisingly enough even children are prone to playing the game due to its realistically displayed world it creates for each player to dive into. Consequently, due to its harsh language and explicit acts of violence, viewers are most likely to imitate these actions even if they are but minor. If not, then its highly possible they would refer back to the game and think about performing these acts. By merely watching the commercial, the audience is drawn into the thrill of being the bad guy without actually getting in trouble in reality. The player is able to think of having the power in his/her’s own hands as a drug lord, or the go-to hit man. Unfortunately, games like these are one of the major influences for young adults since it involves specific and detailed weapons, fighting techniques, gangs, and sneaky ways to rob a bank, or bombard into a drug factory, etc. Of course outrageous situations like firing missiles at helicopters until they drown in the ocean will probably be unlikely, but the point remains as the idea is being offered, therefore it adds onto the 200,000 acts of violence a high school student will view by the time they graduate as the book indicates. As mentioned above, whether or not the acts were performed, an aggressive response will be inhibited and the social learning will have succeeded influencing human behavior time and time again.
No comments:
Post a Comment