If media didn't affect people then advertisers wouldn't spend billions on advertising. Consciously or not everything we take in has an affect on us.
One thing that I've yet to see mentioned is that most of the mass shooters in the past decade have been either on or withdrawaling from anti-depressants. 5 of the top 10 legal drugs linked to violence, whether suicide or homocide, are anti-depressants.
''Subsequently, mass shootings and other violent incidents started to be reported. More often than not, the common denominator was that the shooters were on an antidepressant, or withdrawing from one. This is not about an isolated incident or two but numerous shootings. The question is, during the past twenty years is the use of antidepressants here a coincidence or a causation?
There have been too many mass shootings for it just to be a coincidence. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed twelve students and a teacher at Columbine High School. Eric was on Luvox, an antidepressant. The Virginia Tech shooter killed thirty-two people and he was on an antidepressant. While withdrawing from Prozac, Kip Kinkel murdered his mother and stepmother. He then shot twenty-two classmates and killed two. Jason Hoffman wounded five at his high school while he was on Effexor, also an antidepressant. James Holmes opened fire in a Colorado movie theater this past summer and killed twelve people and wounded fifty-eight. He was under the care of a psychiatrist but no information has been released as to what drug he must have been on.''
http://www.cchrflorida.org/blog/antidepressants-are-a-prescription-for-mass-shootings/
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