Any American who pays the slightest attention to today's news is aware of the fact that an active debate exists concerning how to handle the ever-growing culture of violence among our nation's youth.

The video Think About It: Understanding TV/Movie Violence seeks to proactively address the one area that parents, teachers, and youth leaders can most influence: the negative media consumption of teens.

Although we will not always be able to monitor what our youth watch, we can introduce them to the consequences of media violence. In the process, we can train them to discern the good from the bad and equip them to make wise media choices.

Clearly, parents are appalled by the copycat behavior that movies, TV shows, and video games can potentially incite, especially among those who have no parental supervision. However, a more commonplace and prevalent effect of media violence is that of desensitization.

The desensitization process--losing the ability to feel or have compassion for an individual or groups of people--is both widespread and damaging. The flippant use of vulgar language and unacceptable treatment of others exhibited by much of America's youth has become mainstream in a society where such behavior is repeatedly modeled (even commended) on television.

Experiencing this desensitization process first-hand, I decided to take action. Let me explain.

I was in my third year of teaching English at a private college prep school in Atlanta. In order to spice up the school curriculum, I decided to use the old television series "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" each week to teach my students about plot development.

After several weeks, I decided to do things a little differently. I stopped the show before the end and let the students write their own endings. They were so excited by the assignment that they wanted to read their work aloud in class. But what I heard both horrified and sickened me. They sounded like something out of Nightmare on Elm Street or Silence of the Lambs. After about the third student, I decided to read the rest myself. There were only a few that were appropriate to read aloud.

When I later addressed the graphic content of their papers, my students were quick to tell me that media violence didn't affect them because the graphic scenes they saw on TV and films were "fake." But when I asked them how they would feel if they saw a dog on TV getting riddled with bullets, they cried out in unison how horrible that would be. My point was simple: Unlike the human carnage they regularly witnessed on TV, they found animal deaths appalling because they had seldom seen it. For the first time, they realized how desensitized they had become to violence. And it served as a real awakening to them to the hazards of media violence.

With the release this past December of videotapes made by Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the nihilistic world views of these young men were frighteningly displayed to the American public. Furthermore, these young men imagined Hollywood filmmakers immortalizing them through movies--suggesting that only prominent directors such as Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction) and Steven Spielberg could do them justice.

Think About It not only explores the current influence of TV/movie violence on teen violence in America, but also looks at how we can learn from history (particularly Nazi Germany) the reasons why we need to address the negative influences of violent media.

With these challenges in mind, the goal of Think About It is to encourage young people to examine the real consequences of gratuitous media violence and to learn why they should reject these types of movies and TV shows. If we can succeed in enabling our students to comprehend the consequences, then we can begin to feel more confident that they will make wise media decisions when we are not around.