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Looking at Video Games and Violence

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the things-to-think-about dept.

rootrider writes "Mark Rahner of the Seattle Times has written a great article discussing the recent trend here in the US to outlaw the purchase of violent video games by minors. I'm sure articles have been written in the past that refute the idea that video games lead to violence, but this is the first mainstream article I've seen that details the issue and does it well." The trend isn't really that new. In the past, Ozzy Osbourne and Dungeons and Dragons have been favorite scapegoats, and when I was in high school it was gangsta rap music. I can't wait until we can attribute violence to the nightly news.

2 of 383 comments (clear)

  1. Diversions by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    During times of war I tend away from video games which involve killing people. Images in the news, particularly if you've gone to the Al-Jezeera site and looked at their un-censored images (yes, this is what war is really like, unlike what you see on US news broadcasts), disturb me and I tend to shift of to strategy games and D&D (where I'm hacking monsters to bits, rather than humans.)

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  2. look at the statistics by morebrackeen · · Score: 5, Interesting
    look at the statistics:

    http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/cv2.htm

    overall, violent crime in the US has been on the decline since 1993.

    interesting coincidence: the decline started the year DOOM was released, one of the first widespread, graphically violent games.

    and a proven statistic: the higher the unemployment, the higher the crime rate. does this mean we can make bad economic policy illegal too?