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All Video Games Cause Aggressive Behavior, Say Two US Congressmen
Fluffeh writes with news that U.S. Congressmen Baca (D-CA) and Wolf (R-VA) have proposed a bill that would require most video games to have a warning label decrying their "potential damaging" long-term effects on children.
"Under the one-page Violence in Video Games Labeling Act (PDF), packaging for all video games except those rated 'EC' for Early Childhood would be required to prominently display a message reading: 'WARNING: Exposure to violent video games has been linked to aggressive behavior.' The proposed label would be required even if the video game in question is not violent."
War causes violent behaviour too, but no congressman as ever putting a bill against, have they?
Thank FSM someone is finally thinking of the children!
I'm glad to see the parties finally getting together on a public ground in the best interests of the public. This is just the kind of cooperation that we need to see so people can move on from partisan bickering. Very progressive.
Oh, wait...
Exposure to politicians has been linked to aggressive behaviour.
Shouldn't TV come with the same warning then?
That means they can't possibly be wrong, right?? Are they still worried about the effects of Doom on the kids of today? I hear Bart Simpson is a really bad influence as well, and those Teletubbies...straight from Satan himself, there to make your toddler catch Gay.
How about "Congress has been linked with corruption and abuse of power" for any campaign Ads?
Violent video games may cause aggressive behavior in a subset of individuals, likely already predisposed to said aggressive behavior.
The same argument was made about violent movies and the now more prevalent incidences of school shootings. I content that the movies didn't make the kids violent; they were already that way and probably should have had help beforehand.
Then our elected officials should cease playing video games. We might actually stop bombing half the planet when we don't get our way :|
[citation needed]
No matter how many sings you put up, the general public WILL NOT READ THEM. You have "No Solicitor" signs, yet you still get people trying to sell you stuff. You put up "No Outside Food Or Drink", yet you still get people bringing it in. You put health warnings on Cigarettes yet people still buy them (because they don't care). These signs won't do anything that the ESRB labeling system hasn't done already. These Congressmen are trying to score political points by doing nothing.
They can have their unsubstantiated warning sticker when all politicians are forced to wear a tiepin that says 'Power Corrupts'.
Or do these Congressmen support Big Hollywood peddling their ultra-violence directly into our CHILDREN's homes????
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Make sure if you go after the Pong recreation competition to get your warning!
And there is at least as much evidence that all political office causes dishonesty.
WARNING: Exposure to X has been linked to aggressive behavior.'
x ==
movies
TV
playgrounds
school
religious texts
alcohol
relationships
capitalism
life
I played violent video games throughout my childhood, and I turned out fine! And anyone who says any different is asking for a beat down!
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
The other day I was driving to return a DVD and I crashed my car into a lamp post because the cops were chasing me. I quickly jumped out and ran to the nearest car and pulled the guy out of it. After beating him to death with a club and stealing his money I returned my DVD to the store. Without video games I may have never had the inspiration I needed in order to avoid a costly late fee on my DVD.
--some of those slide tackles are pretty nasty.
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Two liars lied. Big fucking deal.
"Welcome to our world. We are the wasted youth. And we are the future too." Yes, I know these are stupid lyrics.
"The videogame industry should spend more money bribing congressmen, like the other entertainment industries. Then we'll start sucking up to them instead of picking on them."
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Do congressmen never realize that it is bullying, and not violent games, that is the primary cause of school shootings because congressmen have a natural tendency to never listen to people?
If movie theaters enforced such notices strictly, they'd get lawsuits from some diabetes advocacy group.
Neither insulin nor the sugar candies some diabetics carry to counter hypoglycemia would count as "outside food or drink".
If a theater is worried that a diabetic would have to bring in a sugar-free drink to stay hydrated during the marathon exhibition of some blockbuster trilogy, then they ought to be selling diet and sugar free drinks to start with. Might I suggest, water? That's even free from the fountain.
But yes, in the modern "everyone is a victim of something" world, it is likely that some diabetic would sue under the ADA.
On the other hand, if the Myesthenia Gravis Foundation hasn't sued already, the theaters are probably safe. After all, having to lift your feet from the sticky floor to walk in and out is hard when you are that weak. And Narcoleptics Anonymous would have sued a long time ago for their members who have been convinced they were having a relapse when they fell asleep during the mind-numbing productions common on theaters today.
This is ridiculous, if we acted like computer game characters we'd all have spent the 80's running around in darkened rooms, popping pills and listening to repetitive music.
Blazing Spiders
All Congressman cause violent behavior, says 2 video game players.
---Fixed it
What real-world effects does this have, if any (crime rates are certainly not going up)? How severe is the effect? Which individuals does it affect? I've only heard of temporary aggressive behavior.
Good question. Video gaming has grown explosively in the last 10-20 years, yet crime rates are generally in decline. Presumably video games are indeed causing aggressive behaviour, yet something else is happening that cancels this out. The alternative is that these Congressmen are fucking idiots, or pandering to an electorate that doesn't know what's wrong, or even if something is wrong, but are eager to be protected from whatever it is that might possibly exist.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
My sons (7 and 9) have been exposed to video games for a good year now, mainly Wii and Nintendo DS ("The Tendo").
My tentative summary: All is fine as long as they play short duration games, like Sports or Mario Kart, where a games lasts only a few minutes.
But it's different when they play games with a story that swallows them, like Zelda or Lego Star Wars. I'm convinced that these games do mess with their minds. Sometimes it takes them the rest of the day to get back out of the game. They don't respond any more. OK, this is probably normal between kids and their parents, but there's more: After a game they are overexcited and hyperactive, they can't focus on a single thought, they have headaches, they scream and shout, they tell us that they hate us and they look as if they mean it. Sometimes I can almost see fangs grow on them.
I guess it's because we take away their super powers when we tell them it's time to switch off. And the worst part is they realize how they are (namely aggressive) and they're obviously not happy about it. But of course they want to play again ASAP. This is highly unsettling form a parent's pov.
You can argue whether this is really as bad as it looks from my perspective, but IMHO these are clear symptoms of addiction and negative side-effects. I have come to believe that video games are unhealthy (to some extent) at a young age and would have liked to keep them away from gaming for a bit longer, and feed them football, hide-and-seek and some healthy mud-digging instead. The kids appear much more sane (and happy, and human) after some real-world activity. But of course you can't help them gaming if daddy owns a Wii, and everybody else in school boasts with their elder brother's gadgets.
In order to mitigate the symptoms we have agreed never to play longer than 30 minutes per day in our family. This has helped a bit, but only quantitatively. The outbursts of aggression have become rarer but not less harsh.
Say out loud: I'm an Aspie and I'm somewhat proud, I guess. Uh. Can I write an email in all caps instead? Hm...
Baca aka Baka, and we all know what that means. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/baka#Noun_5
Almost exactly wrong if you meant Ron & Nancy, Reagan chewed out Secretary of the Interior James Watt for forbidding the Beach Boys to play at the national mall. Ron was a fan of the band. Of course, if you meant the James Watt as part of the Reagan Administration decided to nix the band because they attracted the wrong element, why, then you would be exactly correct. Any sufficiency large bureaucracy takes opposite positions of itself -- at least until it get slapped down for screwing up.
Link to violence? By whom? Some quack? Can anyone go around linking cause and effect? As far as I know, no study has conclusively linked violence to video games. And a few have shown the exact opposite, in that violent video games give people an outlet to vent.
He was first elected in 1982, promising to retire from the Congress after 6 terms. That would have been 1994. He's still there, 18 years, and 9 terms after he'd pledged to retire. So much for his word. His OTHER interests are Tibet, Stopping Internet Gambling, and pork (in the form of road construction funding for his district). How do I know this ? I'm a citizen of Virginia's Tenth Congressional District. Somebody: Dems, Greens, Libertarians, Tea Party: PLEASE run someone to replace this clown...
Whoever said anything about politicians being the best?
They are just well-connected, wealthy, and power-hungry. That is the basic recipe of a politician. The rest is just details.
From my post:
Cigarette warning labels (displayed on an actually harmful product) are not effective
From your link:
knowledge of warning labels on cigarette packages and advertisements is not associated with reduced smoking
I guess then I have reached that old age already. The idea to tell the whole world when I sit on the can and how my bowel movement was is kinda frightening. Not only do I not understand why I would possibly want to tell anyone and everyone what I do, how I feel or where I go, the whole concept is honestly frightening me. I spent a good deal of my early life just TRYING to get some privacy and some private space, giving it up voluntarily is something I absolutely cannot grasp at all.
It's actually really something I do not understand the appeal of. Then again, I have to admit, I have no Facebook profile and the only reason I know my cellphone can take pictures is because the manual mentions it. There is also no current photography of me in existence. The closest thing to a current photo I have is in my passport, and that's roughly 2 years old.
What I cannot find out is now, am I really already old with my not-yet 40 years? Did I already cross the threshold where you don't understand the latest fads anymore and find them frightening and backwards?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.