Society largely tuned out of the "does media impact its viewers psychologically or behaviourally?" debate in the 80s after the moral panic. And it was a moral

Society largely tuned out of the "does media impact its viewers psychologically or behaviourally?" debate in the 80s after the moral panic. And it was a moral panic. But I've always been uncomfortable with the opposite extreme position, the implicit reaction to the moral panic. The argument where TV, movies, games, social media, it's not possible for them to have any real effect on their viewers psychologically, regardless of content, even when they're exposed to dozens of hours a week in some extreme cases. That strains my credulity. There's been a lot of research done which suggests it is true; it has an impact. For example, exposure to violent media doesn't appear to cause violence by inducing insensitivity to horror and the disgust, as once hypothesized. But it does seem to cause anxiety about being the victim of violence. The more violent TV news and violent movies you watch, the more you overestimate your chances of being horribly murdered one day. But you know, maybe it does just make us violent. The mass shooter phenomenon is, arguably, a media-propagated thing. Copycats upon copycats, inspired solely through media exposure. Similarly, sexualized material does not turn people sex-crazed, it makes them sex-negative and apprehensive about their own body image. As a general rule, the more porn you watch, the fewer sex partners you have. There has been a massive change in the sexual behaviour of young adults over the last couple decades -- they have literally half as much sex as we did in my generation. Could it possibly have something to do with the media boys watch?