When you consider the graphic violence found in the media today, which would have been ruled unsuitable by both producers and consumers only 20 or 30 years ago, it would be hard to argue that society has not become largely desensitized to violence. Undoubtedly the media's escalating use of graphic violence in speech and action has been influential in this. The media have accustomed us to vile language, angry talk and demeaning terms which no longer have the capacity to shock us. At the same time, young people have been inundated with physical violence through the news and entertainment media, and that too no longer has the shocking effect it ought to have. An atmosphere has been created in which at least a few people no longer feel the restraints they ought to about resorting to violence, as some terrible events in the last few years demonstrate.
Ultimately society is pornography's victim.
There is no better proof of that than the Internet. No sooner do we have at our command this instrument for so many good and useful purposes than it turns out that pornographic web sites are among the fastest growing category. As a result, parents, schools, libraries, government and industry have to spend time and money on figuring out how to curb pornography's influence so that the Internet can be useful in the way it was intended to be. Families need to protect their homes. They wouldn't welcome visitors who trashed their homes, and they shouldn't welcome visitors through media who trash their minds.