[url=http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/08/22/news_6131680.html]Researchers: violent games rub off on kids[/url]
Luckily enough, these researchers are intelligent people and are looking beyond just the surface of violence and video games.
[quote]As for what's next in the field, Kieffer said researchers need to go beyond simply establishing the link between violent games and violent behavior, and search for the root cause of violent outbursts like the case of Devin Moore, who killed three police officers in Alabama and then pled not guilty by reason of mental defect, claiming that exposure to games like Grand Theft Auto and abuse as a child resulted in the shooting.
"We need to look at the personality correlates of the people who play these violent games, who are most attracted to them, or who don't just play them for pleasure," Kieffer said. "Is there something about these people who play these games that's suggestive of future consequences or events that's a cause for concern?"
Here's another interesting tidbit:
[quote]Perhaps most interestingly, the APA called for the development and dissemination of a content-based ratings system that accurately reflects the content of games and interactive media, the implication being that the Entertainment Software Ratings Board's existing system is inadequate.
The ESRB is useless, and we all knew it. :)
I really want people to stop playing games for everything. Chances are if your 12 year old son bought GTA or some other violent game then you bought if for him because its against the law to sell that kind of stuff to kids. People need to start yelling at parents for not paying attion to what their kids are doing.
It's nice to know that games can goes violent behaouvir in kids. Maybe parents will start paying more attion to what they buy for their kids. I do believe that its part of the parents fault for not telling their kids that what they do in the game is fake, and that no matter what, its wrong to kill someone in real life, and that its wrong to rape, steal, or attack other person.
I grew up with Violent Games not being Violent myself. However I think I am starting to see something. Most people need to go through counseling when they kill someone. Like a police officer or people in the Military. But someone I know who has Killed in the war, didn't need counseling. He grew up playing Killing Games and Got into First Person Shooters and what not. He was more or less kind of used to killing without remorse in games and it effected him in the real world. I could see something like that happening.
Parents, parents, parents. They are the root cause of youth violence, says I. If at least one spouse does not have the time to dedicate to supervising a kid's childhood, they should be poster boys and girls for celibacy. As my old friend nyarlathotep was fond of saying, humans should be sterlized at birth and given the cure and a liscence for parenting when they earn it.
No shit violent games rub off on kids. EVERYTHING DOES.
Haven't a ton of people died from mimmicking wrestling moves? :3
It's not amazing how the blame get's put on the most convenient thing for an age group.
more recent shootings by teenagers are..you guessed it...being blamed on video games..in alabama a 16 year old kid was pulled over by 2 police officers..the kid then took the cops gun and shot both officers and stole the police cruiser..he was eventally caught but the tree humping librals immidiatly jumped to gta 3 and gta vc becuase that same week the boy purchased the collection that was made for Xbox....all the shootings that were done after doom were blamed on video games...what ever happend to personaly responceibility huh?..according to my dad he said that the blaming on video games is B.S because back in the 70s shootings were done constintly by school kids crazy drunks and gangs long before mario and donky kong were invented...in my opinion the parents should have been better parents if the kid would pick up a gun and shoot law enforcement officers without hesitation...and if he is mimicking gta then why not take the bloody games away from him? if hes likely to do what they do in video games then take it away dont let him play it for poops sake..sort of like that woman sueing mc donalds becuase she spilt coffie on her self and it melted her skin to the bone.....if anything they should focus on people not claming responceibility for there retardation
May I introduce you to Joseph Lieberman? Hillary Cliton maybe? Ever heard of these people?
Not the first one. Hilary sounds like a soccer mom, who are typically republican, aren't they?
No, I'm pretty sure that the wife of Bill Clinton might, JUST MAYBE, be a democrat.
All sarcasm aside, they are both democratic senators who are leading the charge against video game violence.
George Bush agrees, he ain't democrat. Here's an idea, how about you stop labelling people "Republican" or "Democrat" everytime they DO something?
How about we just say that it's politicians that are saying games are bad because they all find it as a good scapegoat. Most people that blame video games fro violence have never touched one in their life. When something is new and unknown to people it's easy to believe things told to you about it.
How come Pacman hasn't been blamed for obesity in America?
Its not Republicans or Democrats that are saying videogames rot our children to criminal acts, its idiots.
I', 14, and I've played plenty of T-rated games before i was 13. SSBM, Metroid Prime, etc. And I've played plenty of M-rated games; Resident Evil 4, Halo 2. And I can guarentee you almost everyone in my school has played at least one M-rated game, but no one ever wears a burlap bag over their head and chainsaws people's heads off.
Actually Speedfreak, Dubya advocated parenting over censoring video games in the whole hot coffee debate. I knew I voted for him for a reason.
Fine, Cltinon still said there's nothing wrong with videogames, and he's liberal. My point still stands.
Hillary Clinton was demonstrating against Hot Coffee, but did she ever say anything about violence in video games?
It seems that it would make more sense for republicans to be leading the fight against video games. They always seem to be about morals with abortion and gay marriage and everything.
Anyways, I guess George Bush would love the fact that games are making people violent. That would mean more people to join his army.
This isn't going to blow over for a long time. There a lots of people who are going to keep doing the same thing, and I don't think we can do anything about it.
But what if we were to focus on games that would teach something? Games like Teris hardly ever get the spotlight because they are always lost in the mass of people who love their killing games. Maybe istead of working on censoring the stuff most immature kids shouldn't even be playing, put a better focus to push more intuitive games out there.
Well, since you are all discussing this particular topic I think that you should visit this blog which primarily focuses on Jack Thompson but it makes for an interesting read.
http://hittheroadjackthompson.blogspot.com
By the way Speedfreak, I have been waiting for Advent Children to come out for a long time now, and if that is truely how it ends, I will be very ****ed at you and take out all of my increasingly building video game violence and unleash it against you. Here is a word of advice: Next time you post a spoiler of a much anticipated movie among gamers on your signature... -don't-.
Oh ***, Jack Thompson's an immature idiot.
you're an idiot. What the hell are you talking about? The U.S. won't make "strict gaming laws," and if they do it won't be for a long while. And Jack Thompson, no matter how idiotic he is, is still a human being.
Shouldn't the liberals, the ones who want less censorship, be AGAINST censoring videogames? Weird how it works sometimes. Thanks, Dems, for reminding me of yet another reason why I vote GOP.
Precisely, boy! That's why we're all wtfing at Hil.
Hey, heres a nice bit a Data I found surfing the internet.
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v492/TendoAddict/image.gif[/IMG]
Yeah, Jack Tomson doesnt know sh*t. Hillary isnt better.
And if anyone goes around it by saying it doesnt tell of people under 12 are stupid, if your younger then 12 then YOU REALLY shouldnt be playing GTA or and M game.
So the new question is:
GTA the New solution to Violence?
Video games are the easy excuse for people to use, especially parents. The real issue is that the parents aren't paying enough attention to their kids and making sure they are growing up with some intelligence. It is much easier to let the kids sit in front of a computer or TV, silent and out of the way, so the parents can do their own thing and ignore them. Fix the parents, the kids will follow.
My big problem with this whole thing is that violence has been decreasing so dramatically for the last 10-15 years that I don't think you can really claim video games are causing kids to get more violent (on the whole, anyway). There's been something like a 40-50% decrease in crime since 1990 or so, and if video games really did that much to you that just shouldn't exist. It's also worth comparing our current society to pre-technological ones - hunter gatherer societies have murder rates of about 30%, and fully half the adult males have killed somebody (yeah, there are still a few around - the amazon and southeast asian island chains). There's something in human nature that's violent, and it seems to me our society has done a pretty good job cutting it down, video games notwithstanding.
Videogames are just a scape goat stupid kids use to try to become innocent. Of course, their plan backfires and only raises more commotion from idiots like Mr. Thompson.
If anything at all, I'd say videogames PREVENT violence. Why? Well, let's say you are really mad at something so you just want to kill something. Instead of going out like a psycho and killing people, you can just play some game and get rid of your anger.
Also, some people might play violent games and thus become disgusted by it, and therefore becoming the very opposite of a violent person.
Someone might argue that you get mad when your playing a videogame and losing... Well, if you get so mad at that that you are willing to commit suicide or kill someone, seek mental help.
In school, we were asked to write a persuasive speech about a subject we were passionate about. Coincidentally, I chose violence in the media. I'll just post what I wrote and ask you to ignore the corny formalities they make you include.
In 2001, the American Government found that 17 school shootings had taken place that year. The following year, 2002, yielded 16 shootings. In 2003, however, recorded a staggering total of 48 school shootings from even the most humble of settings. Something has changed in as short a time as one year, changing the face of American youth along with it. What could possibly change so fast? What has a strong grip on young minds, but also fluctuates constantly? What seed was planted into the teenage generation of America that has now grown into a flowering corruption? Only the media has such power, and it has been the target for blame ever since games, movies, television and music began putting emphasis on violence, murder, sex, drugs and other immoral content.
As an instinctive learning tool given to them by nature, juveniles observe their elders and their society to learn how to function and interact with others. For a considerable period of their youth, they watch, listen, and without even realizing it, teach themselves what is acceptable. Through the modern media, this instinct has backfired; children and teens at this developing age see sex in movies, experience murder in videogames, see blood and misery on television and hear profanities and criminal acts promoted in music. They see it, they hear it, they soak it in, they think about it, and almost inevitably, they experience it for themselves firsthand because they were taught what is right and what is wrong through the media, their window into society.
The real question is who’s ultimately responsible: the producers for marketing such monstrosities, the retailers who sell them irresponsibly, or the parents who overlook them in the hands of their children. Anti-violent-videogame activists and their poster protestor, Jack Thompson, would have you believe that fault lies entirely with the producers, claiming that, “… [G]ames… suppress the inhibition to kill, and then the industry turns around and sells these games to kids” (Thompson CBS Interview). This is partly true; the games, as well as the movies, television and music, are the source of the suppression of moral inhibition, so doesn’t that make it the producers’ fault for making it available? Wrong: the producers do what they can to make adult media unavailable to developing teens through rating systems that show consumers the proper age for their entertainment, and they are not to be blamed if people fail to follow the rating system. Likewise, retailers can only do so much to enforce age restrictions. Asking for ID when purchasing adult entertainment can only help so much when the adults allow children to interact. The source of blame lies there, in the adults who are charged with protecting their child from improper material in the first place.
In this developing age, juveniles must be protected by the only people with the responsibility to do so: their parents and guardians. It is the parent who must equip his or her children with the proper ideals of life before they experience it in the media. Producers do not create their entertainment as an immoral influence, nor do retailers sell them for that reason, and yet parents allow it to serve that purpose anyway. Children and teenagers only use media as a learning tool in want of a proper teacher; the controlled education of violence, murder, sex, drugs and other immoral subjects will result in an understanding of these subjects for the horrors they can be, and no form of entertainment depicting them any other way will change that understanding. If every parent were to raise their children this way, being sure they comprehend life’s rights and wrongs before they interact with the media, annual school shootings may wither from that staggering 48 to an all-time low of 0.
Like I said, too lazy to reformat it for you guys says the same thing, either way.