Fictional Characters, How About That?

Naruto Uzumaki

   People always say video games and television will rot our brains. I've never believed them, at least not about video games. Depending on what you read and experience, your own personality will change. Yeah, it shocked me at first to, but apparently it's true. 

  So take a look at yourself right now. Think about the character who you relate to, or maybe a character you look up to. Do you have that picture in your head? Now think about how they act, and then compare that to the way you act. There's surprising similarities right?

  This happens when you lose yourself in a fictional element or character. You start to take on traits of the person. There's an actual name for this, it's called experience-taking

2D versus 3D anyone?

   According to the research from this article, it can cause temporary changes, and even permanent changes in the viewer's personality. I think that's great for some of us who watch anime and such, but what about the ones that don't?

  Say a person has a meeting with experience-taking while watching a horror movie. They relate to the killer and or some other psycho maniac. Does this make them want to murder others and perform other grotesque actions? Who knows, but I see experience-taking as a positive or negative experience depending on what the person is actually watching. I'm aware that some can go without being affected by such images, but what about others?

Look how happy he is to see you!

  I can even use myself as an example. I started watching Naruto around 6th grade; was a mega nerd even before I discovered anime, mostly with video games. The character who is disliked by many, Sasuke Uchiha, always appealed to me. His fancy jutsu seemed cool compared to the others. His personality seemed somewhat arrogant, but interesting at the same time. He was known as a genius, smarter than most of the other ninja, something I related to. 

  This was the start of my Sasuke faze, as I started to act more like him. His negative traits started to appear in me as well. It could be just called teen angst, but I feel that my mindset had a lot to do with the problem.

   Eventually I was drawn to Naruto, and have been since then. I don't know if I've taken any of his traits, I can't really tell. Some would probably say I watched too much anime or I was to into it, but whatever. Nothing's wrong with getting pulled into a fictional world; if we looked at everything with a grain of salt all the time how boring would life be? 

  Anyways, I'd love to see other's thoughts on the whole experience-taking mess. If you've got something to say, post it!