To start, there is the risk of intense and sometimes lasting psychological distress. As many of us know from personal experience, seeing disturbing content, even if it is dramatized, can be upsetting at the time and haunting for years to come. One study found that more than a quarter of college students continued to experience persistent anxiety about a distressing scene in a television show or movie they had watched, on average, at age 14.

Indeed, it is much more powerful to see an event than to read or hear about it. “Imagery is really strong,” notes Jill Murphy, the editor in chief at Common Sense Media, a nonprofit group that rates and reviews media consumed by children and teenagers. Knowing about acts such as rape and seeing them, she says, “are two different things.”

Karyn Riddle, a professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who researches the effects on children and adolescents of viewing violent media, echoes Ms. Murphy’s concerns. “Watching sexual violence could be traumatizing,” she explains, “and that fear could stay with you for many years.”