Do you agree or disagree that television programs, movies, and video games influence young people's behavior?Give reasons and specific examples to support your claim.

Young people who are developing their personality are very prone to be influenced by their environment. Television programs, movies, and video games are some of the influential agents of modern life and I believe that they have both positive and negative impacts on the young people's behavior.

Television programs that are specifically produced for the young, as their target audience, have significant influence on modifying their target's behavior. For instance, social studies showed that codes of social etiquette that are conveyed to the school-age children via short animations on the TV are very successful in consolidating the positive social behaviors.

However, watching unsuitable programs are shown to encourage unfavorable and sometimes antisocial behaviors among the young. Violent behavior in television programs as well as movies are easily absorbed by the young minds and lead to a vicious cycle of malpractice as the young reproduce the violent acts in media. Recently, a breaking news reporting that an elementary school kid shoot his friend to imitate a scene of an adult action movie shocked the society.

Video games are also like double-edged blades. While puzzle games and the game produced with particular educational purposes can improve the young people's mental capacity and knowledge, there are other games that may result in aggressive and/or reckless behaviors. My little cousin learnt to speak English merely by playing video games in this language. However, he became very irritable in the period he played games for long hours. Moreover, the exciting nature of the video games may generate addiction to playing them.

In a nut shell, media has a powerful effect on our behaviors. It may shape them in a positive way which makes us better fit to our society or it may cause antisocial behaviors to develop. Since the young people are rather vulnerable to the media, I agree that television programs, movies, and video games influence young people's behavior.