Are Violent Video Games Really Damaging to Children?

[DJDizzy1]

It's a lot harder for parents to monitor video games because most of them don't watch them. Stores also have a responsiblilty not to sell adult material to those who are underage I know they do it because they sold it to me.

I am personally more worried about the images they see on tv, movies and music videos though. When playing games their is more of a escapism feeling but when youre watching people who are "real" it's much easier to let negative actions and behaviours get through that filter and influence thier actions.

 

[Agaric]

I don't believe the problem with violent video games is that they're going to lead to antisocial behavior or violence. I think the problem is that they're influencing day-to-day behavior, ie: parking one's butt in a chair for hours on end playing something that won't amount to much of a constructive experience. I'm a videogamer myself, but I certainly take it in moderation. I don't think that video games influence violent tendencies, those problems are more deep-seeded in the youths who display them.

 

[dong]

Good point. Up to this point the debate was to-ing and fro-ing so I thought well why not throw in a clarifier: What if we were to consider the question as both a matter of:

a) Whether videogames themselves cause violent tendencies.
b) Whether videogames themselves can be a mediator of actions for those who are already have a motive to/are predisposed to violence.

I suspect that the latter is easily true for certain cases but that people often jump to the former. How one treats a violent videogame seems dependent on personal factors that again make case-by-case analysis a more accurate tool than attempting to draw a general stance. It helps some people become less violent, for example.

 

[palefrost]

I personally dont like the images in "grand theft auto" as the name implies you run around stealing cars, beating and shooting people as you do it. To "win" the game you become a drug lord. This type of message in a video game goes against what society teaches. This game cause the rating system to go into place. The developers of such games take no personal responsibility for what they produce. Its all about the money.

Parents for the most part slack off as well and do not view the video games. I think they are just happy to have little jimmy out of the hair for a few hours. They assuming its appropriate. Heck its a game! right?

The real problem comes in when you leave your kids in front of ANY disassociated reality (tv, pc, games) for great lengths of time. How can a developing brain comprehend the rights and wrongs in society when they spend hours on hours in a make believe word without any outside stimulus?

 

[dong]

I personally dont like the images in "grand theft auto" as the name implies you run around stealing cars, beating and shooting people as you do it. To "win" the game you become a drug lord. This type of message in a video game goes against what society teaches. This game cause the rating system to go into place.

When specifically talking about the GTA series (of which I have played through the lot thus far and in great detail), I would argue that, as articles from such publications as TIME mentioned, these were games with the ratings systems already firmly in mind. From GTA III onwards, the series was quite clearly oriented towards and adult audience and practically spearheaded revolution in the world of gaming to the effect. It assumes that on average, a person playing that game will acknowledge the satirical and absurd components, because it is an appreciation of this which really puts the humor and entertainment value into such, IMO. I could not really imagine GTA being feasibly implicated as a causative agent in violent conduct, and while I'm at it, I didn't really understand the whole "San Andreas coffee grinds" sensation and banning either.

Of course, since a game is a marketable commodity, and available to the public, not all the people who play it will fall under the ideal target audience, nor will all the people in the target audience appreciate the game as intended. There will be some people who take it at face value. Regarding arguments about parental responsibility, the argument was just how accountable they were for their children's actions (for which there are many many parallel threads on this forum alone).