are violent video games ruining the youth of tomorrow

[kylehaas]

Re: are violent video games ruining the youth of tomorrow

I let out my violence in games because I would never do such things in real life.

I blame rap and hip-hop "music" and bad parents.

[tobi14]

Re: are violent video games ruining the youth of tomorrow

people who think violent games ruin kids, i personally think, are full of s**t. if u believe that they do, then just dont buy them.

[devonin]

Re: are violent video games ruining the youth of tomorrow

You've connected two concepts that have nothing to do with each other. You've provided no link between "Video games are violent/not violent" and "You should/should not buy video games"

[tobi14]

Re: are violent video games ruining the youth of tomorrow

i stated my basic opinion in the simplest form. i dont feel like going in depth at the moment, much less have an arguement online. online arguements are more pointless than trying to make a fish survive outside of water, so im not going to post further

[devonin]

Re: are violent video games ruining the youth of tomorrow

online arguements are more pointless than trying to make a fish survive outside of water

You either didn't read the rules of this forum, or you did and simply have no intention of following them. Maybe not posting here anymore is a good idea for you.

[clashrocker7]

Re: are violent video games ruining the youth of tomorrow

Its pretty simple.
Grand Theft Auto did not tell the kid to shoot people in reality.
The kid's sick twisted mind told him to shoot people in reality.
I play San Andreas every day, and I don't think about doing a drive-by....

[toxicninja]

Re: are violent video games ruining the youth of tomorrow

But why should we stand around and wait for kids to commit crimes when we can stop it at the source. I mean, if planes kept falling out of the sky because the wing wasn't bolted down right, you wouldn't go blaming the wing for breaking, you'd blame the mechanic whose job was to make the plane safe for flight. In this case, parents are the mechanics. It is their job to teach their children how to be obedient and the difference between right from wrong through discipline, if they fail to do this, the child will grow up social problems.

I don't think it's always the parents fault, sometimes people are born with mental defects.

[Dragula219]

Re: are violent video games ruining the youth of tomorrow

You make some good points, so I'll respond the best I can. Just a note, whenever I refer to "blame" or "fault" in this response, I mean finding them guilty of the crime committed.

But why should we stand around and wait for kids to commit crimes when we can stop it at the source. I mean, if planes kept falling out of the sky because the wing wasn't bolted down right, you wouldn't go blaming the wing for breaking, you'd blame the mechanic whose job was to make the plane safe for flight. In this case, parents are the mechanics. It is their job to teach their children how to be obedient and the difference between right from wrong through discipline, if they fail to do this, the child will grow up social problems.

Sure, in the situation you explained the blame could be on the mechanic, but that is a completely different situation from a child shooting someone. The problem with your analogy is that the wing is an inanimate object, not a person. If the wing could chose to not be bolted down right (for whatever reason) you would blame the wing. No matter how good the mechanic is, no matter how hard he bolted it down, if the wing has a choice you can't blame the mechanic. Same thing with a child shooting; No matter how "good" parents are, the child still makes the decision to shoot someone of his/her own accord. Now, don't get me wrong, I think that parents do play a major role in prevention of these kind of things, but prevention and fault are completely different things. You can't say it's the police's fault that a shooting occurred because they failed to prevent it.

Or a better analogy: parents acts as a window to protect the child, while at the same time exposing their children to the real world. Parents who don't pay attention to their children are likely to have their window smashed, exposing the child to the elements.

Well, I guess you could argue that if they are at a young enough age to not understand the consequences of their actions (which happens to be one of the things that must be proven in court to be found guilty of a crime.) In that case, I believe it is nothing more than an accident. You still can't blame the parents in my opinion. Sure, they possibly could have prevented it, but you can't charge someone with a crime because they failed to prevent it. It's not like they told the kid to go shoot somebody (and if they did they obviously should be found guilty.)

Children can't comprehend why adults think and act the way they do because they have a different perspective about the world. For the first decade of life or so, a child is extremely egocentric. They don't realize that the other people have feelings, in fact, they are fairly oblivious to others. Children aren't little adults, they are stupid little adults who don't understand the consequences of their actions.

That is an extremely general statement, you can't say all kids have no understanding of the world. You are also referring to a much younger age than most school shootings occur. As far as I knew, we were talking about early high school students, because that is the most common time shootings occur. Also, the same time everyone has been trying to blame them on video games and parents and whatever they want to. Honestly I believe even without the help of parents a child that age knows the consequences of his/her actions, and is basically a "little adult".

A child is a clean slate (to an extent) and the personality of that child largely depends on how good the parents are at their job. The better they are, the more likely it is that the child will turn out normal. The worse, the more like likely it is that the kid will spend the rest of it's life jumping in between jailhouses and methlabs.

First, I don't necessarily believe that's true. I have many friends who came from broken homes and are just as functional as me or you, and I know many kids who come from secure homes and turn out to be crackheads (actually, it is a major trend at an expensive catholic high school near me. They have crazy coke/crack parties with lots of sex involved, I found it utterly hilarious.) My whole point is it doesn't matter, influence is not fault in my eyes. You can't find a parent guilty of murder because the didn't raise their child well enough. Not raising them well enough ≠ Putting a gun in their hand and telling them to shoot up a school.

[Shad_Zero]

Re: are violent video games ruining the youth of tomorrow

Well, I may live in a crazy neighborhood and play violent games, but I never think on killing anyone. I think that it's not really much of the kid's fault, but the parents. To me, M rated video games is really a privilege and my parents only give them out to me at times. If parents would know how to lay their hand on these little kids and tell them that until you pay bills, I buy you whatever the **** I say. And that's how I think that if parents would tell their kids that video gaming is a privilege and not a right, maybe we might not have as much killings as we do now.

[Coolgamer]

Re: are violent video games ruining the youth of tomorrow

The media will blame anyone from games to Manson to Luvox. Could it be that the kids were screwed up to begin with?

[Aa_Doodaa]

Re: are violent video games ruining the youth of tomorrow

Well, I may live in a crazy neighborhood and play violent games, but I never think on killing anyone

And that's how I think that if parents would tell their kids that video gaming is a privilege and not a right, maybe we might not have as much killings as we do now.

Contradicting opinions in one paragraph. Smooth.

As for my thoughts, I think that violent games are more of somewhere for people to go TO kill people. They know the consequences of such actions in reality, and so fall back on the option of virtual slaughtering.

If a person wishes to shoot people in reality and at the same time not have to worry about criminal charges, there are other much easier ways to do so than getting a hold of a weapon and murdering someone. Paintballing, for example.

[Coolgamer]

Re: are violent video games ruining the youth of tomorrow

I've done a lot of research on it since Columbine, and the thing is, there's school shootings where games haven't been a factor. Remember VA Tech? The shooter barely touched games in that case.

I remember when it was evil rap music we had to slap warning labels on and shield our precious kids from.

[MixMasterLar]

Re: are violent video games ruining the youth of tomorrow

Ok, Here I go.

While I agree with most crimes not being related to Games, I will say that games can and have shaped children's thoughts. Ive known alot of little kids (10 under) who were simply messed in the head due to playing games 14+ hours a day. Now I know that's extreme, but even if a small kid only plays a game for, say, 5-7 hours a day then I guess the game will pretty much program the kid's thinking pattern.

I have no links or proof for the above statment, it is just a veiwpoint.

And so is the next one:

We, as gamers, have been pushing all the blame on perents for too long. BOTH parties are guilty for diffarent reasons: Perents for not teacher young children that games are just games ("He's just a boy, He'll grow out of it"), for not making them stop playing if it seems to be getting to they're head ("he just looooves that gun game") and for not following the ESRB at all; Gamers for Suportting that a game is OK when it's not (When Hot Coffee was found, every gamer it seems defended it), not making the ESRB rate the games better (They just randomly pick between T and M it seems), and by consently saying that only a game rated T or M is worth playing (No, FFR is not this bad, but it has happened) Sometimes, like Guido said, it's no one's fault but the kid's.

ALSO: Keep in mind that when we first started playing games, they werent as bad as they are now. It was mostly about gameplay, and today the story of the game itself is a sellpoint to kids. Even if we knew the story, it was 9/10 that you were the hero saving the girl/world from evil (Mario, Ninja Gaiden, Final Fight) and today that's not so true (Destroy all humans, GTA, Soul Calibur 3) even games like Jak & Daxter were Jak is protrayed as a ****y rebel who follows his own rules or the Crash games were Crash will team up with the "bad guy" if he's playing by the rules (regardless of what was done--adding to the "Notthing will come of it" thing) have put a big - on kids.

Note: I metion Soul Calibur due to even the "Heros" having some faults of they're own. Xianghua, Taki, Ivy etc, and even allowing you to play as the dark side (Nighmare, Tira, Rapheal, etc etc

[DeMoNpUpPeT]

Re: are violent video games ruining the youth of tomorrow

I blame parents more than I blame the games. I feel it is the parents fault for not putting up more responsibilty into disciplining the kids. Though todays media does contribute to turning kids into brats too. Not just video games, but movies and music too.

I do agree that some parents have some take in this.
I don't agree that it's about responsibilty in diciplining the kids.
Sure kids need discipline, but parents can't control the media.
Kids shouldn't be disciplined for whatever is happening in the media.
They have no say in what there is out there.
I believe the parents can help with this by using restriction to their child/children not discipline.

It's true the media contributes alot to this more than anything else
I would blame the media.
And yes violent video games are ruining the youth of tomorrow.

[Zamiax]

Re: are violent video games ruining the youth of tomorrow

i say that public schools are at fault not video games, in fact many video games were just made to further the intellect of the mind with several puzzles that are simliar to an IQ test.