Rant: Video Game Violence

[dolarmak 23]

Sorry about the rant, but it's been on my mind for a long time. The posting of the ESRB thing drudged it all back up and i needed to voice it.

 

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A little while ago I got into a heated discussion with my father's girlfriend about video game violence and children. It was one of those discussions where she as a non-gamer had little to know evedence to back up her arguements, but try as I might she refused to accept any imperical evidence I tried to show her. Be it psychological studies done by world renound universities or doctors, she would spew back the FoxNews version of media's 'Video games are bad' slander thats been going on for decades which pisses me off so much.

 

Her arguements stem from the fact that her grandchildren (14 and 17 years old) only play violent games with killing and guns in them and they are prone to violent outbursts. Now lets forget for a minute that both her grandchildren have Aspergers and are genetically predisposed to violents from a drunk and drug addicted father, and lets forget the fact that children with Aspergers tend to get extremely irritated when they can't get their point across to compound an issue with disclexia and social anxiety. Lets just focus on the children in the media. You know, the school shooters....Lets forget that over 400 million people world wide who play video games every day without bothering any one at all, lets focus on the 30 people/children who have been in the news and were killing people, because their so called videogaming backgrounds.

 

First I find it so hard to believe that people refuse to accept the numbers as any sort of value to the arguement. i mean 400+ million vs 30ish people (remember, these guys are known to play video games). Lets take that a step further and take it from a national point of view. Now I'm from Canada, and so far in canada there has been a total of 4 school shooters that I can remember who the media played up their video game backgrounds. Thats stands next to the 7 million people who our own government census says play video games. So in all the stats say 1/1.5 million, which is about the rate I would estimate fro any given place. With that said, 1 in 1.5 million is such a small number, I mean more people will die from cancer.

 

And what about school shootsings before video games...since the early 1800s there have been recorded school shooting. Infact if you look at the numbers, school shootings have gone DOWN in the last 30 years compaired to the averages. On top of that over 90% of them being in the US, and the fact that the majority of those are from gun pro states such as Texas or from gang related turf fights in areas like New York city.

What I'm thinking is that guns might be the issue more than video games....just a thought.

 

But it seems that no one likes to think of the fact that gun violence is much more perdomenant with gangs and drug related cases (even involving children) compaired to video game related cases. Just number wise a child is 100 times more likely to be involved with gang related violence than so how with video game related violence.

 

Alright so I told her the numbers and her responce was like this. "The colombine shooters got their training from playing video games. If they didn't play them they would have never got the idea of using guns to kill people."

I swear to god that was what she said. I almost had a fit. They wouldn't have gotten the idea if not for video games? Really? So the TV and Movie media which totes guns as the solution to all of lifes problems such as Rambo, Terminator and the Expendables has no impact on their ideas that getting guns to hurt or kill the people who have been persecuting them? Really?

 

Now lets also forget that the police and Federal Invesigators also ruled out video games as a source of motivation, as these people also had a huge collection of illegal/banned movies. The fact that they were socially outcast, had huge psychological problems and were either physically or mentally abused by their parents didn't have anything to do with it, did it?

 

But finally I say lets put the blame on the parents. If media (TV, Movies, Video Games) actually does have an impact on these people and our children, then surly it is up to the parent to moderate what their children are exposed to. If you want to blame video games for the violent behavior they have then shouldn't the parents regulate what games they buy their children. They get upset when a 8 year old watches a rated R movie, shouldn't they be as vigolent when he plays a Rated 18+ game? Why arn't the parents responsable when they were the ones who bought the game for their kid in the first place?

You can't blame the media for being violent, adults love violent entertainment. I mean these things have ratings on them for that reason. Blame the parents for not careing enough about their childs well-being or who are too busy with work to be able to see the signs that their child is a psychopath. Lets blame the parents whom these children get the guns and ammo from, their locks which are so very easy to circumvent.

I blame their parents for not teaching them the difference between right and wrong, between respect and disrespect, between the lawful and unlawful. Parents need to start taking responsability for their children.

I blame the Parents!

 

For those interested I added 3 atrictles as just a bit of referance to what I'm talking about.

 

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/story/health/story/2011-09-14/Dont-study-the-video-game-study-the-player/50406018/1

http://kotaku.com/5900312/studies-linking-game-violence-with-real+world-aggression-may-all-be-wrong

http://techland.time.com/2012/04/17/norway-killer-played-world-of-warcraft-which-probably-means-nothing-at-all/

Edited October 29, 2012 by dolarmak

[Arkbennett 16]

I felt that passionate about that debate years ago. Then I realized: You cannot change a point of view that does not want to be changed. When she is willing to be more open minded during a debate, then you debate. Otherwise, disagree and ignore it.

 

There is a lot of misinformation out there. Only time can change them. Time will bring results.

 

You don't even need to bring up information from the 1800's, her childrens disorders, or columbine.

 

Humans are violent. Always have been, always will. These "Civilized" people (I.E. Your Dad's GF) have this notion that everyone in modernized society are not animals. We are violent animals. That simple fact by itself is what caused these tragedies.

 

Don't let her frustrate you.