Within our modern cultural and digital landscapes, it is no secret that there is an overwhelming glut of entertainment media. For example, in terms of television and film, one needs only to look at the 50+ different streaming services available in North America for a frame of reference, or even the 17,000+ titles offered by Netflix alone. Likewise, the video game industry is similarly gargantuan, reaching upwards of 85 billion dollars in revenue within the United States alone. These markets have grown exponentially over a short period of time, due in large part to the COVID-19 pandemic. The average American adult has been reported to spend an average of upwards of 4 hours a day using digital media or watching television, and is a figure that has progressively increased over time. Indeed, although the pandemic has died down as of 2022, it is fair to say that many were left to spend the majority of their time consuming media during quarantine, explaining this multi-industry growth trend. It is likewise fair to say that through this process, a particular societal issue has worsened. The issue in this case is our shared overexposure to entertainment media.
This overexposure, in turn, can be named as a cause of other matters of concern. Given the massive quantity of entertainment media we are exposed to, at what point do we become desensitized to the world around us? To be more specific, can it be concluded that this phenomenon lends itself to a streamlined process of oversimplification when it comes to people’s ability to digest real world social issues? From my perspective, this is to an extent true. I know that in my personal experience, I spend an overly large amount of time on the computer, playing video games, or browsing social media, and have limited direct social interaction as a result. On a societal scale, I have found some pertinent examples of media desensitization affecting the wider perception of social issues.
One popular and long debated example revolves around the reported societal indifference violence due to overexposure towards media featuring it. This 2015 study from the National Library of Medicine dissects this notion, and found that it did in fact hold truth. In addition to finding a correlation between subject responses to violent content and the consistency that which future aggressive behavior could be predicted, researchers found that subjects also near universally had subdued responses towards the material they were presented with and were largely unfazed. The study connects these findings to the rate at which children and adolescents consume and grow up with violent media, which I personally view as basically accurate. In my childhood experience, media featuring content such as guns that is reserved for “mature audiences” was most commonly consumed by kids. This may explain the apparent widespread indifference towards current events pertaining to violence.
Violent video games and movies have historically been labeled as solely responsible for this problem, but I find this assessment to be overly reductive. It is human nature to disengage with stressful subject matter, and I think this fact could serve to partially explain what we see so regularly. For instance, prominent issues such as the war in Ukraine are apparently easily dismissed and forgotten by the general population mere days after they happen. This is often clearly illustrated by social media trends, where topics such as this fall off the face of platforms like Twitter. While violent media itself may not be the sole variable at play here, there is nevertheless a noticeable consensus trend of mass media desensitization, which sets an ill precedent.
As another example, this Center for Media and Social Impact study highlights the ways in which the homeless crisis in America is trivialized and subjected to stereotypes by mainstream pop culture, and can by extension be attributed to the idea of wider media desensitization. The study cited numerous harmful narratives proliferated by entertainment media. These include derogatory racial caricatures, victim blaming in the form of placing the cause of homelessness on the self destructive behavior of those affected, and a dismissive and oversimplifying attitude towards finding a resolution to the crisis. Furthermore, the study explains the lack of sympathetic media attention homeless individuals receive. This example felt relevant to the subject of media desensitization for me, as I believe it is all too common for the average American to dismiss the homeless crisis and presume it can be summarily tied towards alcoholism, drug addiction, and mental illness as root causes. In doing so, they therefore fail to appreciate the multifaceted nature of the problem and become desensitized, passively accepting the depictions offered by entertainment media. This is just one other major national issue that goes underreported and taken for granted as a result.
While it is difficult to fully ascertain why this trend of desensitization has occurred, Robert Putnam shares his insight on the topic in his 2000 book Bowling Alone. In it, he cites the “deterioration of social bonds and civic engagement”. He also describes a system of “social capitol” that is accumulated through interpersonal interaction and direct community involvement. Putnam relates its net decline to factors such as excessive urbanization, as well as technology and mass media. On the latter, Putnam places particular emphasis on television. Regarding television and his perceived general over reliance on technology, he writes, “Heavy users of these new forms of entertainment are certainly isolated, passive, and detached from their communities, but we cannot be entirely certain that they would be more sociable in the absence of television. At the very least, television and its electronic cousins are willing accomplices in the civic mystery we have been unraveling, and more likely than not, they are ringleaders.” As mentioned before, Bowling Alone was published in 2000, before the rise of social media had even reached its peak. If Putnam’s argument can be considered relevant for the time, it is undebatable that it has therefore since become all the more salient as the proportionality of entertainment media has been inflated so heavily in 2022 by comparison.
Unfortunately, as Putnam states in his book, there is no easy solution towards the issue of cultural desensitization through media exposure. Skills such as media literacy are certainly important tools, but they do not adequately solve the problem of cultural over reliance on technology and entertainment media. The currency system of “social capitol” described by Putnam similarly feels like a poor descriptor of what we need, as it makes the notions of meaningful interpersonal interaction and paying attention towards relevant issues seem awkwardly transactional. In my opinion, technology and entertainment media are economic and cultural necessities, and I do not think the solution is necessarily less of it.
Instead, I think the solution is for people to practice self moderation. Like with any product, everyone has the ability to choose the rate at which they consume, so this notion of self moderation merely needs to be put into practice. In terms of addressing the societal desensitization towards important issues, this too involves choice. If people want to bring awareness to something, they need to use technology and media to vocalize their concerns instead of neglecting to use them. Essentially, the solution towards societal desensitization, although challenging, lies in the rate at which individuals accept their agency and actively choose to fight against it through exercising their rights of media literacy and free speech. Desensitization comes from lack of awareness and indifference, which can both be rectified by presenting people with material that resonates with them.