Kids and Horror

So after looking into the genetics of horror and a possible justification for violent horror, I'm now going to talk about a big concern for many in the horror genre: kids and horror content. Many people are worried about whether or not viewing graphic horror content, or graphic content in general, will affect their kids' behaviors, whether those effects be long-term or short-term. Laura J. Pearce and Andy P. Field conducted a study to try and get insight into this concept. The first goal of their study was to look at internalizing disorders such as fear, anxiety, PTSD, depression, or sleep problems and how many people are actually affected in these ways by scary TV. The second goal examined whether "methodological details, characteristics of the media, or attributes of the child moderated this effect" (103). Thus, they wanted to look at details and elements of scary TV, as well as characteristics of the kids, to see if they influence the internal effects. About 25% of young children claimed to have experienced intense fear due to the content, whereas 75% did not. Pearce and Field hypothesized that young children, under the age of 6, will be affected more by scary TV because they have a harder time distinguishing between fantasy and reality at that age. Contrasting, they predicted that older children will be less affected because they are aware that the material is not reality. They summarized their results of the experiment, "The results showed that exposure to scary TV was consistently associated with internalizing responses such as fear, anxiety, PTSD, depression, and sleep problems. Interestingly, the overall effect of scary TV on internalizing symptoms was comparable to the impact that violent TV has on externalizing behaviors: Meta-analyses focusing on violent TV suggest that it has [a] fairly small effect on aggression and a larger effect on antisocial behavior" (111). Therefore, most kids don't become more aggressive as a result of viewing horror content, but they might become a little bit more antisocial. To what extent? We don't really know yet, but it doesn't seem to be an entirely severe problem so much that people are attempting to eradicate horror content from society because it's poisoning the minds of all children. Parents who don't want their kids seeing the violence or content should be more strict and not allow their kids to watch horror content. However, if they're completely never seeing any violent content, they will likely react differently when they see it at an older age. This study was very interesting, and claims to be the only one that explores internalized behavior change as a result of scary TV viewing. I think that more studies should be done to see if the young kids that exhibited changes or were affected actually grow up to be different or act differently during childhood and development. I think that altogether more studies could be done regarding horror content and its effects on society and different groups, but I believe that parents hold a lot of the responsibility for kids seeing the content, and most adults should be aware that the movies are fake and have the common sense not to act according to the characters, with few exceptions such as those who may actually have genetic predispositions to violent behavior. There will always be instances like that, so horror content removal wouldn't make much of a difference I don't believe.

I read another interesting article on children and the effects of horror content. The article was from ScienceDaily and they said many similar things as did the study. They discussed how kids can develop anxiety, sleep disorders, and aggressive behaviors more easily. The article presented an interesting fact that 76 NYC moms with PTSD actually watch more violent content. This was from a study conducted by Dr. Daniel S. Schechter, director of the Infant-Family Service at Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital and assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbus University College of Physicians and Surgeons and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Schechter states, "Paradoxically, mothers with violence-related PTSD, who wish to shield themselves and their children from violence, inadvertently expose themselves and their children to violence through movies, television and video games perhaps as a way of feeling a sense of control in the present over very frightening memories of out-of-control experiences." So mothers who were affected by violent content actually view it and let their children view it more often. This is really an interesting idea because it doesn't seem very logical. It would be neat to see further studies done on this because it seems contradictory, but there must be some sort of reasoning behind it. Perhaps the mothers don't want to shield their children from the content in order to give them a sense of reality and what could happen. I know plenty of parents who just let their kids watch almost anything nowadays. My 13 year old sister has friends that describe in detail scenes from the popular TV series American Horror Story. As a fan of the show, I can express my strong opinion that kids that young shouldn't be watching a show like that. It contains graphic violence, drug usage, explicit sexual content, language, and all around graphic content. When I hear them describing the scenes I'm just sitting there like whaaaaat?! Although I don't believe they should remove these elements from the show because as a horror fan, it's what I enjoy, I certainly don't think anyone under the age of 16 should be watching it. I believe that certain forms of horror could cause anxiety or sleep problems in young children. It just makes sense. Even today, after seeing numerous horror films, I still get creeped out after watching some of them. Yes, if I never watched those films I probably wouldn't still be hesitant to go into really dark rooms or to close my eyes in the shower (don't laugh you know you've done it too). So children get the effects worse because they are completely unaware that the content is fake. They believe that monsters are actually under their beds or that the Boogeyman is real. Horror content can certainly have effects on kids, but a major part of how it affects their lives is how the parents deal with the situation. I grew up with horror content, but not super violent ones until about 15-16, when I was mature enough to handle it. I think the solution is to not let very young children to view extreme graphic horror content because that way, we won't have to worry so much about them having those internal or external effects. I think that there are too many careless people today who don't regulate content viewing enough. At a certain age, yea, teens should be allowed to go see scary movies with their friends and talk about how cool they are, but up until that point, regulation needs to be there. If regulation increased, less kids would be affected, and less parents would be worried. However, there is a point to which regulation becomes extreme as well. We need to find a balance between how much content should be experienced versus how much content should be regulated.

New York-Presbyterian Hospital. "Halloween Horror Movies May Cause Emotional Problems in Young Children."

ScienceDaily, 31 October 2006.

Pearce, L.J. and Field, A.P. (2016), The Impact of "Scary" TV and Film on Children's Internalizing Emotions: A Meta-

Analysis. Human Communication Research, 42: 98-121. doi: 10.1111/hcre.12069