Youth violence and Games

[Helevitia]

Just curious, what do you think of this article?

http://gr.bolt.com/articles/violence/violence.htm

[Nowhere]

Yeah, basically no cause and effect relation - at most correlation between beeing from dysfunctional family and violence (which might include more violent games preferred). I'll put it this way: I know how one raises a kid which sees acts of cruelty etc. all the time, yet he most probably grows up to be a pacifist (in most positive sense of the word). OTOH I know also in what way things can be ****ed so that a kid who never even heard about violence can very easy become a murderer (mass if situation permits) if certain circumstances happen...

[Gurm]

Absolute, 100% truth.

[Claymonkey]

Brilliant article! I'm going to forward that to everyone.

[Gurm]

Excellent article. Very interesting read and gets straight to the point.

Personally I am sure most of us play lots of games (and a lot violent ones too) but I don't think we will go out and start killing people. Rather, these games are probably good... we release out stress in games.... i guess...

Ahh yes, the cathartic effect. It's debatable.

[KvHagedorn]

That's pretty interesting. Maybe there is a cathartic effect for some otherwise violent people, but really I think there are other reasons for the decline. It's not necessarily a GOOD thing to accustom kids to a mindset that regards crime as cool, though.

I think most people can view GTA as a GAME and only that.. they shouldn't make the people look too real in the future though. What I find interesting is that huge rise there from 1985-1995. Why did that happen? I notice that two movies that treat violence as a cool thing came out in 1994.. Pulp Fiction and Natural Born Killers. In 1994, the 14-17 rate starts to drop sharply.. pretty weird..

[Gurm]

What this means, KvH, is that movies and TV have no mass causal effect on youth violence. Or such a small one that it hardly matters. It means that violent games don't make kids kill. Nor do violent movies. Or music.

I agree that it's not good to accustom kids to this sort of thing, though.

[The PIT]

Most violence comes from drugs and booze.
What I find interesting that sometimes you can get a decent person out of family of thugs and trash. Never understood why one person can be so different. See it a few times.

[Dr Mordrid]

It depends on the age of the kid.

Older kids are perfectly able to distinguish between their game and real world IF they've not been exposed to gratuitous violence when they were very young. There is ample evidence to show that young children exposed to this kind of violence become violent themselves at much higher rates.

This cycle of violence is well documented, and since young children cannot tell the difference between fantasy and reality it matters not if the violence occurred in the real world or in a game.

Uppance: these games are fine as long as the kids don't get them in the "formative years" betwen birth and about age 6-7. In this range their personalities are being formed, so exposing them to this kind of violence is taking chances with their emotional development.

Add violence in the home or on the street and matters worsen drastically.

Dr. Mordrid

[RC Agent]

There's an ariticle in JAMA by Brian Vastag titled "Does Video Game Violence Sow Agression?" Volume 219 (2004) Pg. 1822-1824.