Addicted?

I think that there is a great possibility of people over-distancing themselves from the real world in the all-encompassing entertainment of the media. I read somewhere that media in itself is not evil, it is a tool, only a means. It is the way that people use this tool that can become evil. In the same way, I think that not all people who engage in a large amount of media-consumption will become addicted, but I think that a large amount of media-consumption can be VERY scary and negative to some people.

Children are very sensitive to becoming addicted, I think, because video games or television has more potential in this age group to become their reality.
"According to the Media Research Lab at Iowa State University, about 8.5 percent of 8-to-18-year-old gamers can be considered pathologically addicted, and nearly one quarter of young people—more males than females—admit they've felt addicted." This was a 2008 study.

There have been some really powerful examples of kids being too-consumed in the media. The scariest ones, to me, have to do with the school shootings and bombings.

This study discussed a theory about the Columbine shooters: "More recently, a US psychiatrist, Jerald Block, has differed with this opinion, arguing that the killers' actions are not well explained by such diagnoses. Rather, he states that Klebold and Harris were immersed in games like Doom and that their lives were most gratifying while playing in the virtual. As they got into trouble, the two teenagers started to get their computer access restricted. Anger that was being projected into the games was now unleashed into the real world. In addition, the computer restrictions opened up substantial amounts of idle time that would have otherwise gone towards their online activities. They increasingly used that time to express their anger and their antisocial tendencies likewise increased. This, in turn, generated more restrictions. Finally, immediately after being arrested and banned from their computers for about a month, the two teens became homicidal and began documenting plans to attack the school."

One of the photographs in the Virginia Tech killer's "multimedia manifesto" may have been inspired by a bloody South Korean movie, "adding to the debate over the influence of pop culture on heinous crimes".

I'm from Oklahoma, so I have always been familiar with the Oklahoma City bombing and Timothy McVeigh. I wondered if he had been at all affected by media, and I found this during my research:
"Apocalyptic and anticommunist Hollywood films also captivated McVeigh, including The Omega Man, Logan's Run, the Planet of the Apes series and especially the 1983 Cold War screed Red Dawn (directed by right-winger John Milius)—about a group of small-town teenagers who become guerrilla fighters when “communists” invade the US—which he rented four times. He also favored militaristic fantasies like First Blood, the first of the Rambo films, and Missing in Action, in which Chuck Norris rescues American prisoners of war. McVeigh began collecting guns and firing them, going so far as to purchase a 10-acre piece of property in southwestern New York with a friend where they could fire their weapons in peace."


Though these examples are not absolutely true or false (each is arguable), I think it's interesting that each of them has a media connection.