By Suzanne Rostler

NEW YORK, Mar 22 (Reuters Health) - The most recent spate of school shootings in California and Pennsylvania left many Americans wondering what is driving teenagers to such extreme forms of violence, and where it will all end. Now an analysis of 10 years of research supports what many have suspected all along: violence in the media can have a profound effect on the behavior of children and teens.

"I'm not surprised by the school shootings," Dr. Susan Villani, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, told Reuters Health. "We have a generation of kids who have been abandoned to the electronic babysitter."

However, other child development experts say it is too easy to blame the media. While TV, video games and music videos have been shown to significantly influence teen behavior, other factors such as poor academic performance and living with someone who has a criminal record or is mentally ill can have an even bigger impact, Dr. Stephen J. Ceci, a professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, said in an interview.

"We are misleading ourselves if we think that the way to get rid of violence in society is to get rid of violence on the big screen or in video games," he said.

Villani looked at a decade of research into the effects of media--including television, movies, advertising, music videos, video games and the Internet--on children. Her report in the April issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry reveals that children and adolescents--and even adults--who watch violent TV shows or movies may be more likely to behave aggressively with strangers, classmates and friends.

Adolescents who watch music videos, listen to the radio and watch television movies more frequently than their peers appear to have sex at younger ages and are more likely than other adolescents to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes and marijuana and cut class. TV violence was also associated with aggression among children as young as 4 years, the report notes.

While there was no evidence that violent lyrics actually caused a change in behavior, some studies indicated that listening to violent and sexually explicit music can desensitize children to violence and promote sexual stereotyping.

Media did not only influence the way young people behave outwardly. Violent or scary television programs or movies were found to cause nightmares, anxious feelings, withdrawal from friends and fear of being alone, among adolescents as well as younger children.

"If parents aren't careful and screen early, children will become desensitized to violence, become more fearful of the world and will be more likely to engage in risky behaviors," Villani said.

She concedes that not all children will be influenced in the same way by the media. Kids who feel alienated and don't have an adult to help them through the trials of growing up may be most susceptible to the negative effects of the media, she said. Young children are also more vulnerable because they cannot distinguish between fiction and reality.

Villani related a story about an 8-year-old boy who became separated from his mother at a fair. When they were reunited 20 minutes later, the mother asked why the boy had not gone to a policeman for help. He told her it was because in the movie Terminator 2, the policemen are bad.

"His way of solving problems had been altered," Villani said.

Villani's report is the latest to point a finger at the media. Many other researchers as well as parents and politicians have blamed television, movies and popular music for everything from the guns in schools to disordered eating and obesity.

Shalom Fisch, a vice president at the Sesame Workshop in New York City, points out that it is not the media per se that influences children. Rather, it is the material that is presented through the media.

"The media is not the message. The message is the message. The media is how it gets to you," he said, quoting another researcher.

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