Time to hold the entertainment industry to account

The outpouring of community concern over the violent attacks on young people in Perth's northern suburbs has made sad reading.

Sad for two reasons. The first is the obvious damage that has been done from such mindless violence, much of which will affect the victims for the rest of their lives.

But it's even sadder because no one seems to have much idea about what to do to stop what is an increasingly serious crisis for young people.

The focus of the commentary has been on the association of the attacks with alcohol.

That plays to a well-worn community stereotype, but disregards the more important behaviour-changing influence of amphetamine-based drugs in random violence.

While alcohol is a disinhibitor, in most people it acts as a mood downer. Conversely, amphetamines make people jumpy and agitated and combined with alcohol, the effect is toxic.

But completely hidden in this debate about mood-altering substances is the continuous diet of violence that most of these young people have been fed for their entire lives.

Most of their visual entertainment is soaked in violence: films, television, even the computer games they play, many of which are R-rated because they are so repulsive.

(UPDATE 11am Thursday: After further research for a Saturday column, I see we don't have an R-rating for computer games in Australia. Games that would fit into an R-rating here are simply refused classification, but this does not stop pirated copies or imports. Perhaps the paragraph above should have read "... computer games they play, many of which SHOULD be R-rated.")

Do-gooders want junk food advertising banned because of the effect it has on children's behaviour. We know the power of these visual messages.

But no one seems to care about the indoctrination of violence, far more powerful and time-consuming than any advertising.

Constant exposure to images of violence - in fact to any form of abuse - has a desensitising effect. We now have a generation of young people suffering from this condition.

So why is anyone surprised young people don't fully comprehend the consequences of a mindless act of violence, especially when they are disinhibited by some mind-altering substance?

Why did the young bloke bashed last Friday express surprise that every "shot" was to his head? That is almost certainly learned behaviour.

People who control the entertainment industry in all its forms have changed our culture by making violence cool.

And the saddest thing of all is that desensitised people require more and more stimulus to achieve their required level of satisfaction.

So just imagine what is in store for the next generation.