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Recently, as we have all heard on the news, bullying, and violence among school
children seems to be increasingly on the rise, along with school shootings. Why is
there an increase in violence among children? Must be because children are
watching more violent images at earlier ages. As a matter of fact, because of new
technology, young people have access to a lot more screen time than people of an
earlier generation. But currently, violence can be observed in the environment of
children and affect more than a violent video game. Therefore, a longitudinal study
that has been following the development of more than 2,000 children and their
families in Soweto-Johannesburg for more than 27 years, reveals the magnitude of
violence to which children are exposed to, either directly (as victims) or indirectly
(as witnesses). For these reasons, researchers studied six categories of violence
to which children are exposed, including at home (seeing parents physically
fighting), at school (seeing one child hit another), in the community (listening to
gunfire), between partners (witnesses of gang violence), personal experiences
(being victims of violence), sexual violence (rape) and perpetration of violence
(fighting, forcing someone to have sex). Consequently, these actions can cause
long-term physical, mental and emotional damage, such as: a prolonged period of
stress, depression, helplessness, being insensitive to violence in the future, being
uncaring about others and becoming violent.