Is Violence Entertaining? Really?

Many years ago, I worked as a science consultant for an independent production company which made wildlife films. They produced these films at their own expense and then sold them to channels such as National Geographic Channel. What struck me when writing scripts for these wildlife films was the need for drama. There must (I was told) be a moment of life or death when an animal is in jeopardy. These moments had to be sought out by careful editing and amplified with dramatic music.

photo credit unsplash/ Evgeniy Kondratiev

Because channels make money from advertising, they only buy productions which catch and hold the attention of viewers. The more viewers they have, the more they can charge advertisers. Producers compete with other productions to be aired which means catching our attention is paramount. Attention is complex with many levels, but our most primal attention is caught by sex and threat, procreation and survival.

Natural selection has honed an immediate unconscious shift of focus towards potential sex and/or the threat of violence. This alarm system is so hardwired that our senses shift before we have even noticed anything. If sex and violence are presented together, viewers are almost unable to not pay attention. These survival instincts are not easily over-ridden.

Because even news programmes must compete with other news providers for viewing numbers, the ‘news’ is no longer about informing us but about grabbing our attention. Producers will therefore find a way to make ‘sex’ newsworthy (scandals are great for this) but they can always fall back on violent traumatic events near or far. Even weather announcements need to compete for your attention and so must be a scary potentially dangerous event. Natural selection in the attention-advertising market inevitably means that EVERYTHING IS DRAMATIC!

This has a terrible impact on our well-being.

Although those profiting from violent productions claim that there is no link between violent entertainment and violent behaviour, research on shows that immersing yourself in violence DOES make you more aggressive. A long-term study of over 3,000 video gamers playing violent games found them to be significantly more angry, anxious and aggressive than those playing non-violent games. That research is necessary to prove this is astounding. It is well known that unscrupulous guerrilla armies turn ‘normal’ boys into violent soldiers by traumatising them often using constant exposure to violent videos.

A recent study of sudden deaths of children playing ‘war games’ found that they died during intense emotional moments. Their deaths have been attributed to previously undiagnosed heart problems. One of the paper’s authors, Dr Jonathan Skinner, was astounded to find video games were contributing to child deaths. He warns that violent video games cannot be considered a safe sport.

How violent entertainment harms us is known. Perception is embodied. Our nervous system responds to whatever we hear, read, or see by simulating the experience in our body. This is why we feel scared when something scary happens to someone else, why we feel a twinge when someone else is hurt on the screen, why we get aroused watching porn. As we perceive information we embody it, feel it, share it. This is how we feel others’ pain and catch others’ emotions, and it is why we can suffer from what is known as secondary trauma. Somatic empathy is a natural human experience, but it leaves us vulnerable to harm from over-exposure to violent media.

The excess of dramatic entertainment on offer is not necessarily a reflection of what viewers want to watch. Viewing figures are consistently high for gentle kind films with happy endings. The excessive drama we are exposed to is about triggering our most basic instincts so that we can’t help but watch, in other words, manipulation rather than preference. As Tristan Harris of the Centre for Humane Technology and documentary The Social Dilemma says, the attention economy has us “in a race to the bottom of the brain stem” meaning it is leading us progressively further back to our most primitive brain functions.

Violent entertainment is not harmless. It is arousing. It readies us for more violence. This is not good for either individuals or society.

Full referencing and exploration are found in my new book ANOTHER SELF: How Your Body Helps You Understand Others. ISBN 9781-80049-280-6. (UK book, US book)