Monkey See, Monkey Do?

So . . . there has long been a commonly-held belief that I totally, entirely disagree with (surprised?).  I remember decades-ago conversations about whether violence in movies and TV begat violence in real-life, and finding it difficult to believe that normal, well-adjusted human beings could, simply by dint of their observing something, be persuaded to engage in that behaviour (you're going to have excuse my overly-formal writing today; I'm concurrently preparing submissions to two different academic conferences, and this is my tone for the day).  But today it's not TV or film that is the evil that is hypnotizing us into engaging in malevolent behaviour, but YouTube. 

There was an article in last week's Globe and Mail about "cutting videos" on YouTube.  The gist of the article was that the popularity of these videos (wherein teens self-mutilate for the camera) normalizes and thus encourages the same behaviour amongst viewers.  Let me ask you - if you stumbled upon a video of someone slashing their own skin while looking for the latest Snickers commercial, what would you do?  I think most of you would probably navigate away in disgust.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only ones who would watch, or who would seek out such videos, are those with a pre-existing interest in the topic.

(Aside: this reminds me of a former co-worker, who said he "found" a gay porno - in the middle of the street, no less - and then took it home and watched it "because it was funny".  By the way, he also walked around the Gay Village in Toronto in form-fitting tank tops.  But no, he wasn't gay - of course not.)

Did Jared Loughner shoot Gabrielle Giffords because Sarah Palin told him to?  Did the Columbine shooters kill fellow students because they saw The Matrix?  Puh-leeze.  I might buy that the choice of target or the manner in which the crimes took place was influenced, but not the act itself.  Similarly, would a teen, who would otherwise have no interest self-mutiliation, start cutting because they saw a video online?  I think not. 

The Globe article claims that research is showing these instances on the rise concurrent with the prevalence of such clips.  First of all, the article substantiates no such claim - they cite research showing the increased presence of videos of teens doing dangerous, stupid things (including self-asphyxiation - didn't they learn anything from Carradine?).  But no link is explained between video and incidence in 'real life.'  It is also possible that this correlation is spurious - that they are both driven by a third variable - or that increased incidence of stupid behaviour is leading to increasing numbers of videos showing stupid behaviour.

And I know that propensity for such behaviour is not necessarily black and white - there may be some teens that could go either way, and the videos may provide a push.  I would argue that taking such action betrays an internal problem (of a psychiatric nature) more so than an external problem (existence of cutting videos).  In other words, if someone is on the fence, and a video sways them, they could have just as easily been pushed by other factors.

And this the crux of the matter.  Eliminating cutting videos, violent movies, etc. won't elimate such behaviour, or even necessarily reduce it.  It's curing a symptom, if you can even call it that, rather than the disease.  Another case of a seemingly-realistic cause taking away the opportunity for meaningful discussion.