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Link: http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/Tech%2B%2526%2BScience/STIStory_208482.html
Title: Teens who watch wrestling take more health risks
The aforementioned article at the Straits Times website is about teens watching violent media, specifically wrestling. Researchers have found that teenage fans of wrestling are more prone to violence themselves, and take more health-related risks like smoking and engaging in unprotected sex. This "effect" on teenagers increase the more they watch wrestling. Is this due to the influence of media, of how they portray the consequences of such actions to not be as serious as they really are?

This article is written to increase awareness of the fact that the media may have negative influence, and might affect the teenager's perspective of what violence is or is not. Especially in wrestling, the extreme violence portrayed in wrestling might affect the teenager's perception of violence, for example, the teen engaging in violence might think that it is okay as wrestlers in the wrestling ring are much more violent. This article also goes into the fact that some of the programs have 'themes' that are negative like racism and degradation of women. This information can be misinterpreted to have some truth, and might affect the teen's view of the world around him.

An interesting point brought up by the article is the fact whether it is the media that makes the teenagers violent or the fact that the teenagers were actually already violent, that led to the fact that they like wrestling, and gravitate towards watching professional wrestling. In my opinion, both situations can be possible, however, for the teenager to like watching professional wrestling, there is a need for the teenager to have a love for violence, and for the media to affect the teenager's attitude towards life, he has to actually watch and enjoy it for a period of time before he is affected. Therefore, for the teenager to enjoy watching professional wrestling, his attitude has to tie in with the media, which in this case is professional wrestling.

There have been brief moments in life where I have been exposed to wrestling programmes. I have wondered why people actually enjoy watching two people in a square area trying to bring each other down using their limbs. I have puzzled about why people pay to watch two people fighting and hurting each other. I was disgusted by the fact that people could derive satisfaction from watching a wrestling programme.

One assumption made in this article was the fact that teen violence was directly linked to wrestling programmes. However, this might not be true. Couldn't there be other promoters like peer pressure, or trends? Peer pressure might actually be more of a promoter of violence than the media. For example, if most of the people around the teen were to smoke, he would be pressurized to smoke or risk being called 'a loser' or names synonymous or close to that. In this case, the media might just be a catalyst and not the main cause.

To a teenager, watching wrestling programmes on television might not be very serious. Apart from thinking that it might be a waste of time, as almost all television shows are, except for the occasional relaxation purpose, he might think that there is no other harm. Therefore, he gets his daily dose of violence, all the while thinking he is okay, while it is affecting him subconsciously, and soon enough, when he has watched enough of wrestling, he will view violence as an everyday thing, and this behavior will go on to include health problems such as smoking and unprotected sex.

This kind of behavior in a school where a lot of teenagers congregate would be a very dangerous thing. Fistfights would break out all the time over small matters, and the response would be to fight fire with fire, and imitate the wrestling moves as shown on television. However, there is one difference - professional wrestlers are professional, they know what they are doing, so that they do not hurt each other too much. The same cannot be said of students. Therefore, some parents over-react to information like this, and ban their children from watching violent movies or television programmes. However, I believe that moderation is the answer, and that children from young should be instilled with the notion that violence cannot solve everything. This also prevents further problems such as health problems caused by smoking and unprotected sex.

In conclusion, children should be taught at a young age that violence cannot and will not solve everything, and that every action has a consequence no matter how big or small it is.