Kids who don't play video games are at risk
Mikey 1 comment
Via Kotaku: Grand Theft Childhood authors Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson talk about their research and findings regarding the effects of video game violence on children. It pretty much affirms everything us gamers have thought from the start, but it's worth watching the video below all the same.
Gillon
Saturday 19th April 2008 | 04:27 AMConcerned parents, overzealous lawyers, and bible thumping politicians are telling us that there is a direct link between video games and adolescent behavior problems.
Id like to see some statistics comparing hate crime, murder, and other incomprehensible insanity between video gamers, verses those kids we saw on Bible Camp, or the ones being home schooled that went on their special tour through that Evolution Museum. Or better yet, a survey comparing the violence level of children who watch T.V. and those who dont.
Children are born with a mind like a brand new blackboard. (Or in todays case a white board) Things like belief in one god or another are taught to a child. So it goes with hate, bigotry, prejudice, and so many other despicable human traits.
If these video game critics were more concerned with what comes over the most advanced teaching machine ever devised-The Television- their efforts would be more well directed and useful But of course, thats not likely to happen, as the same corpro-fascists who run the fictional television mega world, run our government and the politicians who claim to represent us. For millions of children today, its the television that tells them how to think, how to act, whats cool, and when to be afraid and who to be afraid of.
Where do we really learn that guns, fast cars, sexy babes, murder, spies, explosions, M-16s, and dead bodies laying in pools of blood are cool? Why, of course, the same place we learn that if we dont drive an S.U.V. , dont clean our countertops with New Stronger Splosh, dont feed our pets food more appetizing than what most of the world ate for dinner last night. The same place we learned to be afraid, learned to need better things to make our lives better. The biggest most formidable and evil tool in use by the greediest people on earth today. The Television. Why arent we taking surveys of behavior based on Television watching? How much more murder? Depression? Fear? Willingness to Defend the Country?
I was not surprised to find out that some amount of social competence came from the playing of these games. In the world we live in today, almost any type of involvement with computers, including excessive playing of video games, instills and nurtures interest in, and understanding of computers. Keyboarding skills alone are a valuable skill in todays world. Not to mention the reading and technical ability required to get good at any of these games.
Its a huge step between stealing a car and killing three people while robbing a bank with a joystick, or game controller, and going out there and doing it. I think that poor parenting, the clergy, and the politicians are looking for an excuse for what Jesus, their holey bible, church camp, and the one true word of god didnt do for them.
Whats next??? Books like: American Psycho, The Zodiac, 1984 by George Orwell, The Catcher in the Rye, Call of the Wild, Tropic of Cancer, Uncle Tomes Cabin. All old news, water under the bridge-I hope
Oh wait, what about the movies? Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, Fight Club, Gladiator, Clockwork Orange. Oh my god, our kids are going to the movies. So much for Charles Bronson, Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, etc.
What about all those protest songs, rallying us to fight for our freedoms?
People have always wanted to ban or get rid of one thing or another based on its danger to our children. Parents need to take the responsibility for their own childrens actions. If they go to church, its because you initially forced them to go. Thats where they are learning their hate and intolerance. If they become hateful and violent, why not do your job really well, and look at all the possibilities?
Video games are but the surface of another right wing wako movement to take away our freedoms, and discredit the internet. On the internet there is truth, and if you know the truth, you are less likely to be afraid. If you are afraid, you will more easily give up your freedoms. What our Fascist leaders fear most is an informed, critical thinking populous.
Why dont we start by doing something pro active and correct? Why dont we take the propaganda shitbox, and turn it into the incredible learning tool that it could have been? What really motivates those who hate these games so badly-I mean besides just plain hate? Instead of giving hours of airtime covering the reasons why we need to be at war and the rest of the time keeping the public involved in issues that just plain dont-now and never will-matter Why not do something right from the beginning?
Hey, why not go on T.V. and start having interesting programs that have to do with making things like alternative energy a reality. How about having our leaders and notables go on the air and challenge every able human to help make us less dependant on oil.
Though I do not consider myself a hateful and violent person, the hate and violence that is in me, I guarantee I didnt learn from a video game. In the immortal words of John Fogerty: I saw it on T.V.