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Don't Blame The Games, Blame The Parent
jayintune writes "2old2play has an interesting article up on the recent push for more laws on videogame sales to children. It goes over the history of violent crime amongst teens and how it relates to the new surge in videogame-related legislation. Do laws really help our children or is it ultimately the parents role to decided?" From the article: "I'd say by the time a kid is three or four, he or she should know it's not okay to hit someone else. The child should be aware violence is not an acceptable response. Parents, grandparents, older siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, teachers... anyone older than a child should reinforce certain societal values and traits. Kids should and mostly do know better. I talked with a psychologist who told me children can separate reality from fiction at about nine or ten years of age. Well, "pre-teen" is what he said. At that age, they know what's on TV isn't real, what's in a video game isn't real. Video games are easier; they're basically just moving cartoons."
When I was a kid the hype was all about violence in cartoons.. I watched them but I never dropped an anvil or piano on someone (not to say I didn't want rocket-powered roller skates).
I think people give far less credit to kids and their concepts of reality vs make believe.
My studio - www.graylands.ca
I've been hearing this from people in the social and psychological fields since shortly after Columbine. The shame is that Jack Thompson and his band of conservaative game haters never heard it or never listened to it. Studies have been done for years that prove this, very few that prove the contrary, and yet only the ones that prove the contrary seem to make the news outside of slashdot and gaming boards.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
Hitler did not have video games. Neither did Ghengis Khan or Alexander the Great. It is up to the parents to raise their children properly. Kids are a product of their whole environment, not just video games.
Choosing the lesser of two evils is a choice for evil.
Blame the game or blame the parent? WTF. It's all of the above and more. Does anyone honestly it's as simplistic as "it's the games fault that Johnny went postal" or "it's his parents fault that Johnny went postal"? Actually I guess there are people that do.
/. fall into this category) are those who claim that the media (including video games) have NOTHING to do with it and responsibility falls on the parents. Both are right and both are wrong.
Listen up folks, regardless of which camp you fall into, you're both wrong. When someone performs such acts it's almost always a complex interaction between many factors. The child themself, their parents, their friends, their environment, all those things factor into how one acts/reacts. There is no such thing as "perfect" parenting. You could apply the exact same parenting style to two different kids and get to very differently behaved kids. Ditto the other factors. What happens is that all these factors play together and if you get the right (or wrong depending on your perspective) then something bad can happen. Blindly trying to blame a single point of failure, while comforting to many, almost never works.
That is what is so upsetting about both extremes of this debate. On the one side you have folks who want to ban violent video games. On the other (and many on
1950s OH MY GOD THE WORLD IS OVER, Rock and Roll... our children are being corrupted
1960s OH MY GOD, ELVIS is such a good boy, but those BEATLES
1970s TV is KILLING my Children
1980s HORROR MOVIES are KILLING my Children
1990s NIVARNA are forcing Children to top themselves
And of course now its Video Games which are forcing Children into a life of violence.
This is just another great "Aunt Sally" for politicians and "academics" to debate and get money from. If it wasn't this they'd be battering on at Cartoons for glorifying violence (there is nothing in Doom III worse than the violence of Tom and Jerry or Roadrunner). The young are ALWAYS being corrupted in the minds of the elders, and what corrupted them in their youth is now seen as innocent.
And have you noticed... its always the over 40s who start wars... something must be making them do it.... I blame mugs of hot chocolate.
And lets not forget when Marge banned "Itchy and Scratchy"
Listen p*ssy. I'm sure your the same homo that posted earlier about alf's boner and you just want to remain anonymous fo
Dear Random Nobody,
Okay, you don't like legislation affecting video games, we get it.
But please, your blog entry comes off as incoherent, at best, and childish at worst.
a) You start off with a straw man. No legislators are calling for people to burn video games. No legislators are claiming that they're the root of all evil.
b) You take a quote from someone who runs Common Sense Media -- an lobbying organization that also happens to provide rating services -- at face value. In the same article you call journalists lazy.
c) You mistakenly cite GTA as the "start" of this. "This" has been going on since Doom. GTA3, and Hot Coffee, weren't out when Colubine happened, if you remember.
d) You waffle, and end up attacking video games yourself by saying "I wouldn't let my children anywhere near one of these games", and that the game sucked. That's like defending Manhunt by saying it was so bad people wouldn't play it.
e) You talk with "a psychologist". No citations, no refernces, no studies that indicate when a child can seperate reality from fantasy. Just your word.
f) You commit the fallacy of accident -- just because you haven't been violent, means that video games don't make people violent. That's not proof, that's circumstance.
g) You site crime statistics that are meaningless in support of your proof. There are well understood reasons why the crime rate dropped nationwide in 1993. This does not preclude, in any way, video games from having a detremental effect.
h) You "read studies" -- you don't cite, you don't reference, you selectively remember. For someone with an alleged Master's degree, you sure as hell don't know how to form an argument.
By the way, I live in a province where the government regulates video games and movies. Oddly, I'm still able to go to EB and buy GTA if I want. And my son can't.
I can't for the life of me figure out why that's bad.
Can laws help? Yes, absolutely. What a parent who is doing his/her job needs is a content label that tells them what's in the game (mild language, strong language, extreme sexuality, moderate violence, etc.).
The first problem ratings, e.g. motion picture ratins, has always been that they don't tell you what's in the film. Instead, they tell you if the film is 'safe' or 'dangerous'. Now, video game ratings are the same way.
The second problem is that no sooner does a work get labeled than some @$$hat write a law restricting sale/ viewing of works with particular ratings.
The only law that's worth having here is one mandating content labelling to give partents information. After than, leave it to the parents to decide.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
I've been hearing this a lot too and it's pure BS. In the 70s a young girl took a gun to school and killed several of her classmates. When asked why, "I hate Mondays" was her only reply. (IIRC, a punk rock song came out of that incident.) This girl was not the only student to commit such violence at a school in the 70s. You can't blame GTA or any other violent game for that; all that was available at that time was pinball and the early Atari games. This has been going on longer than there have been violent video games. Why are they focusing on video games being a cause now when this problem obviously began -- and well withing living memory -- before these kind of video games existed?
Thing is, a lot of people who advocate this are the same age as me or even older so they should remember these incidents too, which makes me wonder what kind of brain-washing techniques the leaders of this movement are using.
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
There is a difference between conscious recognition that something is "just pretend" and actually not having it effect you, and the fact that someone that is 5, or a teen, or whatever can say "its just pretend" doesn't imply that it is not having a bigger effect on their thinking and behavior than it might on a person with a more mature brain. And there are plenty of studies that support that this is, in fact, generally the case.
Note: I'm not saying I agree with the mindset that the state should regulate; I believe that parents are the best regulators, and that the role of the state should be to empower parents while not constraining the free flow of content, which is a tough balance to strike. And, further, I think that sheltering kids from "mature" content isn't really the best response. Sure, there needs to be some control, but more important is to prepare them for increasingly mature content and helping them develope the mental facilities to deal with it. All I'm saying is that its a bit naive to say that kids are generally safe because they consciously recognize the distinction between "pretend" and "reality".
Because sooner or later they are going to run into sex, violence, etc., in art and/or reality, and they ought to be prepared to deal with exposure to it when they do.
It's not violent video games, it's any form of violent media. Movies, TV, books...I mean, look at the bible, that has inspired some of the more violent actions ever.
If you wind up with a "stupid, barking, airheaded mutt", you have already failed the "ability to train something with the mind of a child" test.
[Speaking as a professional dog trainer with 36 years experience.]
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?