Children have always learned how to behave in the world from the stories of their time, and the mass media are today's story-tellers. If the stories our children see routinely involve violence as a solution to problems, or simply as a random omnipresence, what kind of personal value system and cultural worldview are we passing on to our children? Even if we don t become more aggressive ourselves, we —or our neighbors, or the kids at school— may become overly fearful of others, or desensitized to the seriousness of violence to others.