Lefty's rant on: "violent video games"

As part of a policy statement on media violence, The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) outlines steps pediatricians can take to evaluate potential heavy media use by children.

Beginning with the claim that “the evidence is now clear and convincing: media violence is 1 of the causal factors of real-life violence and aggression,” the AAP paper encourages pediatricians to ask at least two media-related questions per each adolescent visit: How much entertainment media per day is the child watching? and Is there a TV or Internet connection in the child’s bedroom?

The AAP recommends that parents remove televisions, Internet and videogames from their kid’s rooms and limit screen time to one to two hours per day, totally avoiding violent games. Parents are also encouraged to co-view any material in order to screen it for appropriateness.

The AAP had recommendations targeted at the entertainment industry as well, including these specific videogame-related topics:

• Video games should not use human or other living targets or award points for killing, because this teaches children to associate pleasure and success with their ability to cause pain and suffering to others.
• Play of violent video games should be restricted to age-limited areas of gaming arcades; the distribution of videos and video games and the exhibition of movies should be limited to appropriate age groups.

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This just made me very angry. Very angry indeed!
<-- me being very angry.

For a start W...T...F...?: “the evidence is now clear and convincing: media violence is 1 of the causal factors of real-life violence and aggression,” What evidence?!? I know this talks about "media" violence but SO many people (including probably Barrack hisself!) are going to be fastening on the "violent video games" aspect. We're only just starting to get the idea through to thick headed sensationalist newspappers with studies like the Byron Review and books like Grand Theft Childhood and Killing Monsters that it's NOT the games themselves that are casuing violence. It can be a catalyst for a minority of unfortunate people playing them that have problems with coping with the reality of real life... but then so can a bad day at work.... hey, that's an idea. I say we ban WORK! Cut that down to two hours a day...

I'm all for that violent video games "should be limited to appropriate age groups."
I'm also all for parents actually taking responsibility for their own children, for fracks sakes.

Why is it that non-gamers are so afraid of games. Most gamers have the brains to realise that no game on earth is the cause of violence in anybody.... oh, apart from football, o'course.

Jesus, Lefty, breathe, .... breeeaaatthhhheeee....

I think violent games , like movies , in no way shape or form create psychopaths. However, I think they probably give sickos some pretty good new ideas . Like Lefty I think that if games are properly classified and parents actually use common sense in restricting access to them , then there should be no concerns over violence in games

The link between violence in games and in real life is that it can contribute to an all ready existing psychological condition or it can wear down the boundaries of people who are more suceptable to psychological conditions. A stable and rational person will not go and run over a hooker to get his money back even if he (or she) has been playing GTA 4 8 hours a day for 6 months.

The contribution to already existing conditions is always linked to other factors as well. These are usually drug's, alcohol and/or past or present mental trauma from being around regular violence or other sustained forms of child abuse. Basically if someone is born a psychopath or develops into a sociopath then it could give them ideas, contribute to fantasies or trigger an event but that is it.

The massive majority of the public are in no way going to react like this. Maybe the worst thing that could happen is that a child could learn bad language from a game or have a nightmare from something scary. I also think that a common acusation that children copy violent games is laughable. Young boys will always have violent pretend play, whether its cops and robbers, spacemen and aliens or anything else. To say that influence on this from games is so much more morally wrong is a feeble excuse bred out of fear of looking at the real problems that the accuser may in some way be a part of or may not be able to deal with.

Theres my 10 cents anyway. I'll climb off my soapbox now and put it back under the bed.

I agree that people should pay attention to age restrictions and parents should monitor what their children are playing.

I heard Jack Dee in an interview the other day, he has 11 year old twin boys that play Xbox, he took GTA away from them because he didn't like the message it was protraying however he lets them play Halo because it is shooting aliens in space and not like real life.

I think that letting young children play violent games only de-sensitises them to violence but doesn't necessarily encourage them to be violent. As others have said this would only exaggerate and already undlying pshycological issue.

Personally I blame all this new hiphop and rap music! I mean with 50 Cent going on about how he has been shot 9 times or however many it is!

Violent computer games the cause of violence in society eh? where have we heard this before? The video nasty era of the eighties and nineties?

Lets face it our society requires a boogey man of some sort and currently our beloved hobby has taken one for the team. Generally this scapegoat is normally the most easiest target.

I have worked in some of London's hellish boroughs and dealt with murderers, drug dealers, thieves and rapists and funny enough I don't think playing GTA4 has made them commit foul acts, I would start looking at education, family background, history of abuse, drug use, poverty, mental health........I think I could go on and on, however computer games does not feature on this list!

Bunny, you mention hip hop, well it's been featured in a british murder trial at the old baily where lyrics of the so solid crew was read out as evidence for a shooting.

iFINGER wrote:Lets face it our society requires a boogey man of some sort and currently our beloved hobby has taken one for the team. Generally this scapegoat is normally the most easiest target.

Yup. Go back to the 50s and 60s and people were blaming the suggestive music and antics of Elvis and The Doors for making teenagers have sex out of wedlock. Anybody with half a brain knows all a teenage couple needs to make them want sex is 10 mins of privacy.

I would argue mankind has a few primitive instincts, of which we can never truly rid ourselves. They are sex, violence and eating.

The thing that annoys me the most about the violent games debate is that these games are not aimed at children. Do they really think the guys making GTA or Condemned were sitting there thinking, "10 year-old boys will loves this poop!" If you give a games developer the freedom to make whatever games they like, they will make games they like, be it violent or otherwise.

[quote="MDub"]

iFINGER wrote:I would argue mankind has a few primitive instincts, of which we can never truly rid ourselves. They are sex, violence and eating.

A few? Mankind is nowhere near evolved as it thinks it is.