Every now and then someone will ask me about my opinion on violence and videogames. Do I think that playing violent games results in violent behavior, that children shouldn't be allowed to own or play games that have a rating higher than their age, that sort of thing.
I've played a lot of games, and I've been in stores where I've seen negligent mothers or fathers buying their child a game that they should NOT be playing. There was this one time that I saw a woman trying to buy a GTA game for her kid who was honestly not tall enough to look over the freaking counter.
The sales rep said, "Ma'am are you sure you want to get this game for your son?"
Her reply, "Yeah, he keeps talking about it."
"This game is pretty violent, and there's some racey stuff in here too."
"Whatever, as long as he stops asking for it I'm okay."
That is how players who have no business playing crazy games get their hands on them. That's how these crazy kids who use the eff-word before they even know what it means and talk about gutting people because they're angry.
But this isn't just an issue of, you see something violent or you play a game with something violent in it and you are then suddenly urged to go kill hookers and mutilate people like you see on Dexter, though I'm sure we all wish we could.
There will always be people who are over protective of what their children see or experience in an effort to substitute parenting or actually teaching their children the difference between right and wrong. They think that sitting their kid in front of the T.V. and allowing them to be taught the facts of life from The Facts of Life (oh yeah, I made a Cable Guy reference, come at me) is a good idea and that video games work similarly. Thus, they try and control what their virtual babysitter shows their children so they don't have to actually pay attention to their kids.
Parenting aside, if a child is given the tools and the ability to learn and put in situations where they can genuinely see the difference between right and wrong, they're more than likely to understand that killing prostitutes or driving 100 mph down a city street is just a bad idea, if only for the legal ramifications. Kids are way smarter than we give them credit for.
Say you don't trust psychological-nature-versus-nurture-mumbo-jumbo. How about this link? That's a paper written at the University of Texas which talks about the effects of violent video games on violent crime. This states that there is an "incapacitation effect" which is translated roughly to meaning "if you're inside playing video games you're not outside committing crimes." That makes sense, right?
Of course there is the fact that since you're inside and getting angry while playing video games you have all that pent up aggression, but according to the paper "The time use effect of violent video games reduce crime by more than the aggression effects increase it...nearly all the laboratory evidence that currently exists has only uncovered very short-term [aggression]." Who knew?
I mean, I sure as hell use violent video games to de-stress when I wish I could beat the crap out of stupid people I encounter. Who doesn't go play God of War and eviscerate a Cyclops because they got an F on a paper, or got chewed out by their boss?
I've played a lot of games, and I've been in stores where I've seen negligent mothers or fathers buying their child a game that they should NOT be playing. There was this one time that I saw a woman trying to buy a GTA game for her kid who was honestly not tall enough to look over the freaking counter.
The sales rep said, "Ma'am are you sure you want to get this game for your son?"
Her reply, "Yeah, he keeps talking about it."
"This game is pretty violent, and there's some racey stuff in here too."
"Whatever, as long as he stops asking for it I'm okay."
That is how players who have no business playing crazy games get their hands on them. That's how these crazy kids who use the eff-word before they even know what it means and talk about gutting people because they're angry.
But this isn't just an issue of, you see something violent or you play a game with something violent in it and you are then suddenly urged to go kill hookers and mutilate people like you see on Dexter, though I'm sure we all wish we could.
There will always be people who are over protective of what their children see or experience in an effort to substitute parenting or actually teaching their children the difference between right and wrong. They think that sitting their kid in front of the T.V. and allowing them to be taught the facts of life from The Facts of Life (oh yeah, I made a Cable Guy reference, come at me) is a good idea and that video games work similarly. Thus, they try and control what their virtual babysitter shows their children so they don't have to actually pay attention to their kids.
Parenting aside, if a child is given the tools and the ability to learn and put in situations where they can genuinely see the difference between right and wrong, they're more than likely to understand that killing prostitutes or driving 100 mph down a city street is just a bad idea, if only for the legal ramifications. Kids are way smarter than we give them credit for.
Say you don't trust psychological-nature-versus-nurture-mumbo-jumbo. How about this link? That's a paper written at the University of Texas which talks about the effects of violent video games on violent crime. This states that there is an "incapacitation effect" which is translated roughly to meaning "if you're inside playing video games you're not outside committing crimes." That makes sense, right?
Of course there is the fact that since you're inside and getting angry while playing video games you have all that pent up aggression, but according to the paper "The time use effect of violent video games reduce crime by more than the aggression effects increase it...nearly all the laboratory evidence that currently exists has only uncovered very short-term [aggression]." Who knew?
I mean, I sure as hell use violent video games to de-stress when I wish I could beat the crap out of stupid people I encounter. Who doesn't go play God of War and eviscerate a Cyclops because they got an F on a paper, or got chewed out by their boss?
So when people come up to me and say, "Hey, because all these video games out right now are so violent, does that mean all the gamers are just ticking time bombs waiting to start the next Columbine shooting?" I reply thusly:
"There are always people who will fit the worst case scenarios that we imagine. Yes, some gamers aren't able to make the distinction between violence in games and violence in real life and the consequences thereof. Maybe this is due to their upbringing, morality or just level of understanding. But the point is that the worst actions will always be viewed above the best actions, like Whitney Houston. She was an amazing talent, but she also used a lot of drugs. People always bring up her substance abuse and judge her because of it. Yes it was wrong and sad and immoral. That doesn't diminish her work, but it definitely puts a bad mark on her record. So yes, games are violent and may cause people to be violent, but games in general are entertaining, fun and according to a study done by the University of Texas, effectively cathartic in preventing violence in the first place."
The system has gotten smarter. The stores are now able to decide whether or not they should sell games to certain people and they are more on guard for these kinds of purchases. Also I think the average intelligence of our children has gone up dramatically, but the intelligence of media programming has gone down so there’s that. There are so many factors we cannot control, that to stress over every little thing would be like putting plastic on the furniture of our society. We’ll never know how good that La-Z-Boy couch is if we don’t take it off. Sure it could be smelly and the springs might hurt us, but we’ll at least walked on the wild side and throw caution to the wind.
I think it also pushes parents to be more present in their children’s lives. Pay attention to your kids, play video games WITH your kids for goodness sake! After all, you might like it and you may save them from becoming a gun-toting Unabomber. Just food for thought.
