the way screen media presents information affects a person's perception of reality > children accept what is portray as the truth & neglect to test it against reality; emotions about aggression & violence > violence measured by prevalence, rate, & role; presented on TV poses these risks - 1) learning to behave violently, 2) becoming desensitized to violence, 3) becoming fearful of being attacked ; attitudes & motives -- when individuals watch a great deal of TV, attitudes built on basis of what they see, & the attitudes have an effect on their motives & behavior; repetition of violence results in classical desensitization > the gradual reduction in response to a stimulus after repeated exposure; leads to lowered emotional response to real-life violence; viewing televised violence increases general arousal (excitement) & leads to an aggressive behavior; viewing violence activates areas of the brain associated with arousa & attention, detection of threat, episodic memory encoding & retrieval, motor programing