Andy Chalk said:
"Profanity is kind of like a stepping stone. You don't go to a movie, hear a bad word, and then go shoot somebody. But when youth both hear and then try profanity out for themselves it can start a downward slide toward more aggressive behavior," said BYU family professor and study Dr. Sarah Coyne, who refrains from swearing herself due to an "honor code" at the university that forbids the use of naughty language by both students at staff.
This is a textbook slippery slope argument. She's trying to assert that hearing a small number of words will somehow cause a person to become violent and aggressive.
Or, alternatively, she's confusing cause and effect: people who curse more often tend to watch movies/shows or play games that have more cursing in them, and any personality they have has developed largely independent of what they watch/play. Maybe cursing more is a byproduct of who they already are as people.
Because, let's face it: kids don't turn emo
after they cut themselves, nor are the razor blades responsible for them being emo.
Andy Chalk said:
But as usual, not everyone agrees with Coyne's conclusions. Psychology professor Dr. Timothy Jay of the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts said the assumption that language can harm kids is without any basis and noted that previous research has demonstrated that words, including the bad ones, can actually have a beneficial effect.
"There is literature that shows the prosocial effects of media on children, the authors ignore these reports," he told Fox News [http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/10/17/swearing-on-tv-linked-to-teen-aggression/]. "The authors make no case for profanity being beneficial, as in humor elicitation, or social bonding, or as a coping mechanism, or as a relief from pain."
I'm noticing a pattern in Escapist articles: call my cynical, but it seems like they're posting the same inflammatory bylines that you'd expect for an advocate of the topic, but then they end with a refutation of everything prior. It's starting to feel like a tabloid that ends all of its articles about alien abductions by adding, "Yeah, because
that sure seems likely." Trying to have your cake and eat it, I think the phrase is.
