Visual entertainment media has shaped American culture and values in many ways. There are so many forms of entertainment nowadays that it has cause many of us including our children to forget what is more important. For example we now use the Internet to rely on so many things, like information. When at one point in time we would use books or news papers. Video games, Internet, cell phones and things like this have taken away from our values of taking time out to enjoy a book. The children of today won’t even take time out to play outside they are more concerned with playing their video games. There was a time where children played outside everyday and that was a form of exercise but now all they want to do is watch television, play games and be on the Internet and their cell phones. The social influences of the visual entertainment media have been more negative than positive. For example YouTube has millions of video up where most of them depict something of negativity or something of no substance. There are so many videos of people fighting than there are of someone speaking out to promote non violence. There are also sexually explicit videos where you see a person has millions of hits, but what you don’t see is anyone encouraging young girls not to post something of that nature for it will come back to haunt them. Also movies have become so much more violent these days that young people are easily influenced by them. I think it is up to us as parents to make sure we monitor what our children do, but the reality is that we cannot watch them 24/7. In conclusion visual media influence social behavior and attitudes when we began to do what we see online, television, or movies. We have to get back to the basics like reading more books, watching the news, and not focus so much on the Internet, video games, movies, and cell