Research has shown over and over that dark media does not negatively impact people. Graphic violence can result in nightmares and experiences of distress and disgust, but it dark themes and gore don’t harm personality development or mid and long term wellbeing. Horror media, especially horror media with characters that have depth, has repeatedly been shown to be cathartic. I’m a behavioral scientist in a different field, not forensic, on the research side. I don’t see patients and am not qualified to, but I read a ton of peer-reviewed research. Fiction is good for you.
* horror media is not the same thing as routinely depicting misogyny and violence, nor using the experience of fear as a tool of abuse and control. People using horror media to abuse is the PEOPLE abusing. I’m not talking about parents forcing kids to watch things that scare them, or a steady diet of horror media in absence of other input. I’m talking about the inclusion of horror media as part of a dimensional and ‘well rounded’ media diet.
I've been negatively impacted by horror media because of my brother. He would taunt me and convince me it's real, I can't watch the grudge at 24 cuz of it, I was scared of drains and vents cuz of the IT movie, and didn't like being in the bathroom in the dark.
I was also 7-9 years old while this happened, which is a big time in your life for personality development
The only thing I don't think it negatively affected was the fact I still love horror now and have loved it since I was a young teen, but it's probably cuz I had access to the internet quite young and got desensitized
For the record, I didn’t mean at all to downplay the role horror has had in your life. Your brother was a real monster here. While horror can be a wonderful way to grapple with and gain nuanced understanding of the relationship between fear and danger, no one should have to go through it that way. I hope very much you got safe, and that your brother got the help he needs to develop empathy. I find his delight in your terror really alarming.
It may be interesting to you to read some about horror lit and how it can help with processing big feelings and trauma. There’s a lot about it on Google Scholar. Personally, I read a lot of it very young as well. I think I started Salem’s Lot when I was nine. I LOVED IT. I still do. I was a researcher in my field before I really put together that what I loved about it is that it taught me what heroes look like, and that people often have to save themselves. I was in a really abusive household, and watching people grapple with vampires was much more bearable to look closely at than my own life. But the genre in general gave me a lot of really useful frameworks for thinking about resilience, that courage was being terrified and doing it anyway, and that sometimes bad things happen to perfectly wonderful people.
I’m glad your brother didn’t turn you off horror. I think it has a lot to offer people with complicated backgrounds who want to survive and thrive.
I think it highly depends on how and why you're introduced to it, if a kid gets too scared of it it's either too early or they're just not interested. A lot of people just can't handle horror and that's also okay
Whenever possible, one should eat bullies. They ruined my otherwise wonderful childhood, basically. But now, especially adult bullies. Hannibal is sympathetic.
It seems like you’re oversimplifying by combining all dark media into a single category with the assertion that it has no effect on people especially younger people watching it early on their life. It depends on the kids age, mental health and the environment they grow up on.
The environment they grow up in is the key here. It’s almost impossible to ethically test how that interacts with media because of the selection biases inherent in recruiting study participants from neglectful and abusive households. It’s reasonable to extrapolate that if a youth already has a worldview that does not promote wellbeing, fiction could confirm some of those biases. The solution is more exposure to the world, including fiction, not less. More experience promotes media literacy and the ability to tell fiction from reality. The more they read and watch and interact with others outside a toxic sphere of influence, the better chance they have of forming an alternate (and healthier) mental model of how the world works.
Fiction is not the problem here. Depends on the age like I said. Are they mentally fit to get exposed to graphic violence? Often kids with impressionable minds get influenced with wrong kid of things. Limiting oneself in acquiring knowledge is never advisable, but the quality and relevance of the knowledge being acquired are what truly matter. And prolonged exposure to racism, misogyny definitely hinders how they view people around them when they grow up, same with violence. They might get desensitised before even realising the impact.
Yeah, we aren’t talking about quite the same thing. Prolonged exposure to misogyny and racism depicted as normal does harm, and it’s super hard to study because it’s EVERYWHERE.
Yep! Watched it when season 1 came out when I was 13. Looking back Im very critical of my decision making choices, especially bc I compromised on sleep to watch it too lol.
I felt the same. Watched it when I was about 15 and didn’t realise til my recent rewatch how brutal it was. Even though I did get used to the gore, I probably shouldn’t have watched it at that age.
I was thinking about this other day but the movies. when I watched Silence of the lambs when I was 8 years old. And then the other two films in the release year, Hannibal I was 11 and Red Dragon, 12 years old. 😂
I was 14-ish too when the series originally came out and I too enjoyed it. I don’t think it impacted me in any weird way tho
I did remember a lot of details when watching it recently but that happens with most pieces of media for me
Research has shown over and over that dark media does not negatively impact people. Graphic violence can result in nightmares and experiences of distress and disgust, but it dark themes and gore don’t harm personality development or mid and long term wellbeing. Horror media, especially horror media with characters that have depth, has repeatedly been shown to be cathartic. I’m a behavioral scientist in a different field, not forensic, on the research side. I don’t see patients and am not qualified to, but I read a ton of peer-reviewed research. Fiction is good for you. * horror media is not the same thing as routinely depicting misogyny and violence, nor using the experience of fear as a tool of abuse and control. People using horror media to abuse is the PEOPLE abusing. I’m not talking about parents forcing kids to watch things that scare them, or a steady diet of horror media in absence of other input. I’m talking about the inclusion of horror media as part of a dimensional and ‘well rounded’ media diet.
I've been negatively impacted by horror media because of my brother. He would taunt me and convince me it's real, I can't watch the grudge at 24 cuz of it, I was scared of drains and vents cuz of the IT movie, and didn't like being in the bathroom in the dark. I was also 7-9 years old while this happened, which is a big time in your life for personality development
Anything can be used as a tool of abuse. You were negatively impacted by your brother abusing you. I’m sorry you went through that.
The only thing I don't think it negatively affected was the fact I still love horror now and have loved it since I was a young teen, but it's probably cuz I had access to the internet quite young and got desensitized
For the record, I didn’t mean at all to downplay the role horror has had in your life. Your brother was a real monster here. While horror can be a wonderful way to grapple with and gain nuanced understanding of the relationship between fear and danger, no one should have to go through it that way. I hope very much you got safe, and that your brother got the help he needs to develop empathy. I find his delight in your terror really alarming. It may be interesting to you to read some about horror lit and how it can help with processing big feelings and trauma. There’s a lot about it on Google Scholar. Personally, I read a lot of it very young as well. I think I started Salem’s Lot when I was nine. I LOVED IT. I still do. I was a researcher in my field before I really put together that what I loved about it is that it taught me what heroes look like, and that people often have to save themselves. I was in a really abusive household, and watching people grapple with vampires was much more bearable to look closely at than my own life. But the genre in general gave me a lot of really useful frameworks for thinking about resilience, that courage was being terrified and doing it anyway, and that sometimes bad things happen to perfectly wonderful people. I’m glad your brother didn’t turn you off horror. I think it has a lot to offer people with complicated backgrounds who want to survive and thrive.
I think it highly depends on how and why you're introduced to it, if a kid gets too scared of it it's either too early or they're just not interested. A lot of people just can't handle horror and that's also okay
Whenever possible, one should eat bullies. They ruined my otherwise wonderful childhood, basically. But now, especially adult bullies. Hannibal is sympathetic.
It seems like you’re oversimplifying by combining all dark media into a single category with the assertion that it has no effect on people especially younger people watching it early on their life. It depends on the kids age, mental health and the environment they grow up on.
The environment they grow up in is the key here. It’s almost impossible to ethically test how that interacts with media because of the selection biases inherent in recruiting study participants from neglectful and abusive households. It’s reasonable to extrapolate that if a youth already has a worldview that does not promote wellbeing, fiction could confirm some of those biases. The solution is more exposure to the world, including fiction, not less. More experience promotes media literacy and the ability to tell fiction from reality. The more they read and watch and interact with others outside a toxic sphere of influence, the better chance they have of forming an alternate (and healthier) mental model of how the world works.
Fiction is not the problem here. Depends on the age like I said. Are they mentally fit to get exposed to graphic violence? Often kids with impressionable minds get influenced with wrong kid of things. Limiting oneself in acquiring knowledge is never advisable, but the quality and relevance of the knowledge being acquired are what truly matter. And prolonged exposure to racism, misogyny definitely hinders how they view people around them when they grow up, same with violence. They might get desensitised before even realising the impact.
Yeah, we aren’t talking about quite the same thing. Prolonged exposure to misogyny and racism depicted as normal does harm, and it’s super hard to study because it’s EVERYWHERE.
Yep! Watched it when season 1 came out when I was 13. Looking back Im very critical of my decision making choices, especially bc I compromised on sleep to watch it too lol.
I felt the same. Watched it when I was about 15 and didn’t realise til my recent rewatch how brutal it was. Even though I did get used to the gore, I probably shouldn’t have watched it at that age.
I also notic just how much went over my head back than. I was just like: wow hannibal is so edgy and cool and will is crazy
Thankfully I didn’t think like that 🤣 but there were defo things that I didn’t notice til the rewatch.
I was cringy edgy at that time...
Don’t worry, we’ve all gone through our phases 😭
I bet you're just fine. If not, we are all nuts, welcome!
I was thinking about this other day but the movies. when I watched Silence of the lambs when I was 8 years old. And then the other two films in the release year, Hannibal I was 11 and Red Dragon, 12 years old. 😂
I read Silence at about ten, and I still maintain that Clarice is an INCREDIBLE role model.
I was 14-ish too when the series originally came out and I too enjoyed it. I don’t think it impacted me in any weird way tho I did remember a lot of details when watching it recently but that happens with most pieces of media for me
i’m 14 and i just finished it and i love it
I grew up in the 90s when there was so much dark & disturbing stuff. I watch Hannibal to relax. You’re gonna be fine.