Tracy Benson from ITF Gaming writes: Usually I tend to dismiss articles about violence in video games and the alleged studies that have been done about the topic. As a reasonably well-adjusted adult, I know I’m not affected by it. I also know that the media has a habit of jumping on the “blame violent video games” bandwagon whenever children or young adults do anything wrong. I have no doubt that, psychologically, excessively graphic and violent games will have an effect on the mental well-being of children, and that’s where age restrictions come in right?
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Parental guidance and moral responsibility are important factors that are for most of these studies intangible. Even at the age of 10 my parents deemed me mature enough for such games.
I am numbed to video game violence but I absolutely hate the real thing. In any situation I will only get 'violent' if it is absolutely necessary and I usually choose to use off-balancing takedowns rather than brute force (even though I have lots of strength to spare). My life motto that I keep in mind in all situations is "Stay Classy".
Children need to be instilled with an understanding of violence at a very young age and taught that it is almost never the right way to go. Also parents should focus on developing a child's logical and deductive reasoning skills as this will help them avoid violent situations and make them think of the consequences of their actions ahead of time.
I have some cousins who were raised almost the exact opposite of me... they were shielded from everything and their learning was stifled by their parents. Those kids are now constantly getting in fights, speaking vulgar language, and stealing things. The oldest one is 13...
If you've checked out the actually scientific studies (the ones that don't neglect to have controls, for example), you should already know that there's no link between real world violence and games.
But unfortunately, we've been bombarded with unscientific studies that create fake links to real world violence by (for example of a real study) having people play violent games and then create situations for a made up character....and GASP! They made up more violent situations for the character in imaginationland, doing imaginary violent things! Games must be making our kid's violent!!
And now our administration wants to increase their waste a little more and pour millions into studies that have already been done, that way they have something to crusade against when America inevitably resists more gun restrictions (that wouldn't have affected the tragic moments that aroused these calls for change anyway).
I'm a Psychology student, and while evidence does indicate that viewing or experiencing violence in general can increase the rate of violence among subjects, it's foolish to blame a violent game on an act of violence. I can guarantee there is a larger underlying issue in acts of violence.
Studies on children watching violent shows does seem to point to an increased level of 'violent' acts afterwards, but I think there is a gulf between play fighting and attacking and wounding/killing another human being.
Either way, they are simply doing correlation research. This does not imply a causal relationship. Unfortunately, people are too stupid to tell the difference. There could be so much other lurking variables.
Public educator here who runs a video game/board game/CCG/RPG club at my school.
Scapegoating is an easy out. We live in a scapegoating culture. The fact is that parenting is hard. Frequently parents do what they need to help kids become responsible adults. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes there were things they could have done when their kid does bad things. Sometimes there was nothing they could do. We as a society do not sit well with uncertainty. Yet, life is, by definition, uncertainty. Whether it be movies, video games, TV, the Internet, religion, Dungeons and Dragons, disease, peanut allergies, schools, the next door neighbor, a friend, the government, congress, or taxes, most parents are looking for the easy scapegoat to either avoid what could be explained (they made poor choices), or to find an "explanation" for the sometimes unexplainable.
The brutal truth is that frequently there are things that we can do to help our youth, and sometimes (rarely) there is nothing that can be done. That doesn't mean we give up. It means that real men and women get real when things don't go well and they acknowledge that rather than just "forbidding" a child from doing some things completely, we talk to them about what they think and feel, we get to know them, and decide not "if" they are ready, or that they can never be ready, but WHEN they are ready.