Since the first motion picture, adults have worried about how children would respond to violent imagery. Now that mobile screens offer kids unlimited access to violent images and videos, we have even more to worry about.
Virtual violence is any act of aggression your child might absorb through TV, movies, video games, social media and other digital channels. It includes the simulated violence in blockbuster films and amateur videos and the animated violence in cartoons and interactive games. News reports of real-life tragedies also deliver an endless loop of virtual violence.
Virtual violence needn’t involve physical harm. Aggressive, threatening, racist or hateful statements can cause can be just as damaging to children who witness them.
