Poll: Video Games and Youth Violence

[Squeaky]

Its how your brought up and in what enviroment, id get into alot of fights when i was around 8 - 10 but thats what generally makes people violient alot like music was blamed when my dad was growing up the media need a trend to blame its not like this stuff happened before or anything. Thanks to the internet local problems and disputes have become everyones problem and thus spiral out of praportion.

 

[Curtisthekiller]

Im going to cross examine this thread and explain why videogame violence causing real violence is ludecrus by examining the violence and themes of the media favorites.

Mass Effect: not quite violent enough to warrant the damning eyes of fox 'news' they instead turned on something they clearly knew nothing about as any player of mass effect can attest to. it was made out as a horrid simulator that let you see full digital nudity and sex, and was blown completely out of proportion, but goes to show that their is an effort to bring that which they do not understand down a peg. as stated before and which will be explained again by people other than me- it happened to every form of consumable media, books, movies television ect.

With that point across let me say this: Some groups of people feel that any form of violence that is associated with a medium that allows for interaction will lead to a slippery slope of violence with it as a prime cause. However the games they choose to go after often have great platforms to defend their 'violent' content.

Gears of War (Series): the media seems to have a field day when you hand them a game with guns in it that have bayonets that have built in saws-of-the-chain variety, however as this is the only one i have on record this is a presumption: i digress. Gears of war has made a name for itself for being one of the goryest barrel full of death since Mortal Kombat. Not taking into account however the setting pitting humans against a rampaging force of pasty killing frenzy hungry drones known as the locust. The violence contained herein is Solely of the isolated conflict of a bunch of guys torn from their homes with nothing better to do than swear at each other and fire back at the guys who've all but wiped out their last bastions of humanity and brought their species to an end.
lets take a look at the main character for a second: Marcus is a man who was confined to a prison for disobeying a direct order to not abandon his post to save his father. his father dead lends motives other than survival to the character. after a couple years in prison I'd probably have better things to do then go out and terminate a hostile alien species like finding a job. Marcus does not have that luxury, and just about all he has left is to kill the hostile foreigners with a little flair and a wee bit of swearing in between 3 hots 'n a cot.

Bullet Storm: A story recently ran that boldly proclaimed that this game Could Make You a Rapist
i almost don't even need to say Anything else right there but unlike Fox 'news' im actually going to defend what i say with some clarity.
This.Is.Scaremongering. I don't know how else to describe this- when every shred of 'evidence' you bring to the table can be easily disproved by typing into Google we are sitting on the defensive from people who are fighting with naught but a few nasty words and a severed middle finger they lost the last time they tried something this Stupid.
Bullet Storm is a game that takes place in a setting so far removed from reality that to associate it with causing real world violence is like saying Calthrops are easy to smash with your bare foot. You play a Space pirate who is trying to get off a planet filled with mental juggernauts of Derp who will attack you en'mass because... you were there. This creates conflict in what would otherwise be a boring romp full of broken buildings and hot dog carts. The game focuses on the player putting his Skills as a gamer to the test to earn points for creativity, violent creativity but creativity none-theless.
Quite frankly if this creates a new generation of Fox news loving sodomites then all i can say is that im looking forward to the guy whose gonna have to explain why he tried to beat his grandma to death with a cactus because he didn't listen to people who take to journalistic integrity like i take to bad nights on the throne.

 

[kurokenshi]

No. Stupid children raised by neglectful parents who shouldn't have children cause youthful violence. When i see a story about a kid killing another kid i think "Those parents fucked up" not "What music did they listen to"

Agreed. It's the parents responsibility to raise their children correctly! Ofcourse there are the "Crazies"(Am I still allowed to call people that?) whose grasp on reality is quite loose.

 

[The Maddest March Hare]

I've been doing the same question for my second year research project, and found a lot of interesting information on it. After a very in depth literary review for the start of the course I can tell you that while there is some link to violence and video games, the least biased articles and studies found a strong correlation between video games triggering the frustration and violence in those already predisposed to that kind of behaviour, but showed little to no (around a 0.4 out of 1) correlation for those who were deemed "normal" or "passive".

There are, however, a great deal of incredibly biased studies, which seem ok on the surface, but if you research their author's (sadly I have none of the names to hand) you can find that many of them have agendas of their own. One of the worst examples I found was a man claiming in his findings that video games cause violence in all people, but his study was only on a small sample of people for such a subjective, psychological issue, and involved no pre-study psychoanalysis of the participants..He also runs a website which demonizes video games..And he's not the only one. Worryingly, he's a fairly prevalent researcher too..

 

[Bender Rodriguez]

Without moderation and care by parents then Yes...have some friends who changed drastically over the years cause of this.
(Violent videogames being used to get away from shit-parents)

I played Vice City as an 11 year old, but with good guidance and loving parents it didn't affect me much.

Again its overdone in the media, but theres some truth to it.
If the conditions are right violent videogames can be destructive.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Do violent videogames cause normal kids to become violent? Unlikely.
Are already agressive kids more likely to buy violent videogames? Damn straight.

This whole 'videogame violence' argument has always put the cart in front of the horse.

 

[khiliani]

i realy hope this isnt a university level study you aredoing here cause this is a very flawed group to poll, it has bias coming out of its arse.

on the other hand it isnt exactly a matter to be decided by popular concensus, and rather somethin for the consideration of people properly qualified such as psychologists.

as for my not qualified opinion, people have been violent to a roughly equal level all throughout history. and it is unlikely that video games are causing any sort of spike in the data, and rather it is people looking for a scapegoat for society.

 

[Cavan]

Ontop of it being a stupid idea to start with, there really hasn't been enough time for people to have grown up on videogames that are possible to relate to the real world.

I grew up with video games like sonic/rayman/crash bandicoot and the original dynasty warriors(which for anybody who hasn't played it is like Tekken and about 1000x better than the approach they've gone for since) which even without blood was a 15 at the time I remember.

So no, give it 5-10 years becausethe people who are going to have grown up with more realism are still under 20(short of sloppy parenting, idiot people going "OMG YOU SHOULDN'T GIVE THIS TO YOUR CHILDREN BAN GAMES TEHY R EVUL" and ignoring the 18+ age rating)

I played Vice City as an 11 year old, but with good guidance and loving parents it didn't affect me much.

I would say this is more the root of the argument than anything else, people(including my parents) don't seem to respect the age ratings on games as much as they do films.

 

[Dragonborne88]

Games are no more likely to cause violence then a violent movie will. You need to raise your child to know the difference between reality and fantasy. That was the first thing my father taught me when I was old enough to start playing games and watching movies, and I'm one of the most docile people on the planet. This is after playing Duke Nukem' 3D at like 8, and Doom/Quake/Hexen at around the same time.

So no, I don't believe video games cause violence. I think stupid parenting and naturally violent tenancies cause violence.

 

[chris89300]

Nope, they don't. Media is all over video game violence as they were all over rock and roll, rap, television, etc.

It's just the trendy thing to make people afraid of.

What really causes violence in kids is bad parenting. I've been playing violent video games all my life, and I've yet to snap or to enjoy the someone suffering IRL and I'm willing to bet it's the same for most of us.


I've seen kids that had never played a video game stabbing each other, smoking, robbing people, drinking and raping. Kids under 14...

Most of society problems are associated with bad parenting.

Even rape, pedophilia, etc.

The media always goes nuts over how porn causes kids to rape each other. Most of us have watched hardcore porn ever since they didn't even understand what was happening, and I doubt more than a few have ever raped or thought about raping someone.


Media is the same thing as the government, all a bunch of lying whores.

 

[Rellik San]

Not on their own. Maybe its just my experience, I'm already odd as my loves of Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Gaming and Comics all come from my mother.... who's a goth. But we always had the view in my house when growing up, certain media was off limits, but she would go one step further and explain to me why. Videogames were no exception, nothing was off limits, if she had doubts, she'd sit and play them with me and we'd discuss why I chose to take a certain action as opposed to another solution.

However I do tend too find these kids, that do play games and go out and commit crimes, often have disinterested parents and general behavioural problems in the first place. I once had one of the regulars in the pub I work in, comment on how video games are too blame for kids violence, I pulled out the three video games I had just purchased; Beautiful Katamari, Rockband 2 and GRID, I then asked her too look at these games and tell me what impact they could possibly have had in causing street violence... Oddly enough she never mentioned it again and now comes to me when her son asks for a new video game too find out if its appropriate or not.

 

[Woodsey]

Nope.

And that's all I've got to say on it, if I'm honest. Really, all I'm doing now is filling in a sentence or two so that I don't get told off for posting something with low content.

 

[Stammer]

Even if the answer was "yes", it would be no more so than anything else. If kids weren't playing violent video games they'd be watching violent movies, watching violent television, listening to violent music, or even reading violent books.

But seriously, if anything I think violent outlets like Grand Theft Auto do more to deter people from violent acts in real life. Human beings live stressful lives, and we need an outlet for that anger. If it's not through video games, through friends, or through family, it's through real life violence and crimes. By no means are violent video games going to end world hunger, but I don't doubt that they're beneficial in moderation.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Hello, Fellow escapists. It is time for you to help me with a project. As some of you may have figured out I don't exactly like talking to randoms face to face, So all of you shall act as my randoms for my survey ! Do you think that Video games cause youth to become more violent? Do you think that video games have a negative effect on Social skills? And do they de-sensitize the youth, if so is that really a bad thing? now go, my escapists, Discuss !

Pleases, Thankyous and pacmen.

You realize how biased the results are going to be? Your survey will be useless. Your question could use some work too. "Do you think..." or "Do you think video games have an effect on..." Just trying to help you out.
Edit: I think they cause desensitization to violence, not necessarily an increase in violent activity.

 

[CyanideSandwich]

Yup. So far, the "no"s have it. Because what gamer will claim to be violent?

I don't personally believe the majority of gamers have anger issues, but I do believe most who do, like to play on XBOX Live.

I'd descibe myself as violent, but I wouldn't say that it's because of video games.

Also, I think this thread would belong in gaming discussion, not off-topic.