During that chaotic week in Lebanon, seeing sixteen years old boys going down the streets holding a rifle sometimes bigger than themselves shocked me. I do know for a fact that some of them were encouraged to go to "war" by their own fathers. A few days before, those same kids were watching television and playing video games. what is dazzling is that those kids, when they are holding that rifle, they are not thinking " I am going to war to defend my country and my beliefs"; they are actually thinking how cool they look with their clothes and rifle and how they look like that guy in that video game or that guy in that movie, and they try to act like him. They also wish someone they know would see them dressed like that and shooting. They are showing off more than anything else, so they are pleased when they see people from the media taking pictures of them and filming them so that the world can see them fight like a 'hero" so they pose and act like it.

We are all aware of the increase of violence displays in the media but apart from a quantity raise, it has become much more graphic, sexual and sadistic, going from movies that show precise visuals of slow-motion bullets exploding from people's chests, dead bodies surrounded by pools of blood and decapitated body parts, to one of the top-selling video games in the world, "Grand Theft Auto' that is programmed so players earn points by carjacking, stealing drugs and money and attacking and killing innocent bystanders and they also can beat prostitutes to death with baseball bats after having sexual intercourse with them. There are a lot of other video games promoting violence and criminality and that actually satisfies criminal fantasies, like "War of Warcraft" that is older than our last example, or "Carmageddon" where players are rewarded for mowing down pedestrians (you can actually hear the sound of cracking bones), etc.

This violence is exciting to the audience as they feel fear and disgust while watching it in movies for instance. Their hearts start beating faster, they're stressing out and feel pressured by the images they are seeing, but nevertheless, they keep on watching and rarely turn their eyes away. That is why people like horror movies as they like to be frightened, get startled and jump off their chairs as much as they don't like it.

The media businesses actually noticed that bad news and violence gives them a lot more viewers than anything else so they keep them coming everyday worse than the last. if u noticed in the news, there is a high difference between the ratio of good and bad news informed.

All of that brings me to my subject matter, how does all that media violence really affect our youngsters and should we really stop it all?