So much for the frenetic pace of modern TV and movies. These are manifestations of the finely honed information-receiving device that is the young brain. But what about the lurid sexuality and explicit violence?

Once again, it is not hard to detect generational changes in literature. The age of Elizabeth I (who died in 1603) typified by shakespeare's plays was followed by a period of relative decadence in the theater where characters exulted in violence and sexuality as ends in themselves.

Literary critics are forever trying to explain such historical shifts but their explanations are shallow at best and circular at worst. The real reason may be that some historical periods encourage more liberated sexuality than others and these periods are unusually violent as illustrated by violent crime rates. There can be little doubt that we are living in a period of greater sexual liberation than was true of earlier generations.

To sum up, modern entertainment mirrors the actual lives of young people in two key respects, information density and sensation seeking, i.e., a search for situations that arouse intense aggressive and sexual impulses, as well as fear.

Whereas the information load is handled mainly by the cortex, sensation-seeking involves stimulation of lower structures in the brain, that Paul MacLean christened the "reptilian brain." It thus appears that modern entertainment stimulates both the top and the bottom of the brain. The reptilian brain is the one that is stimulated by entertainment characterized as "coarse." One example is the sadistic revenge on a child molester depicted in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in response to a violent sexual assault on the protagonist.

It is fairly clear that young people are primed to handle a great deal of information very quickly thanks to their exposure to information technology, including video games that are full of intense stimulation and cultivate novelty and surprise (2). It is an open question as to whether modern media promote a coarser sensibility,

Researchers on video games have reported some evidence that children become desensitized to violence as a result (3). They may also be desensitized to sexual violence, and to explicit sexuality more generally. This means that it takes ever more extreme depictions of violence and sexuality to obtain the same shock value, the same reptilian jolt.

There is a great deal of individual variation in sensation seeking and this personality trait is linked to testosterone production, as are violence and sexuality for men and women. Understanding such differences is important for understanding gender differences in sensation seeking, including the fact that men are more physically aggressive than women (at least in respect to violent crime) as well as being more willing to take unnecessary risks, e.g., by driving dangerously.

It may well be that modern mass media are tapping into a coarser temperament in young people, that might explain which movies are currently popular and profitable and why serial killing is now a staple of TV.

We still do not fully understand why such generational differences in sensibility exist but they deserve more attention from researchers. Understanding such basic differences is clearly essential for tolerance and communication between the generations.

1. Barber, N. (2010b). Applying the concept of adaptation to societal differences in intelligence. Cross-Cultural Research, 44, 116-150.
2. Barber, N. (2008). The myth of culture: Why we need a genuine natural science of societies (pp. 161-165). Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press.
3. Barber, N. (2002). The science of romance (pp. 81-85). Amherst, NY: Prometheus.