If life was like Grand Theft Auto, would we run around killing people? Better yet, would we invent video games that allow us to passively sit at a computer all day?
Hell, no...
The reason people love videogames is because our lives are boring; or at least when compared to movies and TV shows. The truth is, whether it's a gory videogame or even The Jersey Shore, what is an existence really worth without spray tans and juice, yeah bro! But back to Videogames.
If people like media for their ability to interpret it, then our infatuation with video games merely stems from our obsession with fairy tales.
The human obsession with video games is much like our infatuation with media; our ability to decide the outcome is really what keeps us spending our money.
Now for those people who think these games are the vain of our existence. Let me make this dry clear, I think elementary school Grand Theft Auto competitions are BAD IDEAS, but blaming violent graphics for our juvenile youth is ridiculous. Well, blaming anything for our societies problems is a cop out, but virtual violence just tantalizes parents everywhere with a nice safe bandwagon. Last time I checked, the "Grand theft Auto" ticket wasn't on the ballot.
So who's to blame? We all are! (Yay)
Very rarely can a problem be boiled down to one solution, so why don't we try parenting for a while and see if that helps. If your kid enjoys burning insects with magnifying glasses a bit too much, maybe you should keep an eye out for dead prostitutes in Grand Theft Auto; or you could just teach him how to effectively interpret media ... By showing him this blog ...
So there you go! Videotapes don't kill people, people kill people. And I could be a child psychologist.
Bam.
Definitely agree with you here Ethan. So many poeple nowadays is so quick to blame media for the problems of our youth. The main question is where are the parents? Certainly a child cant go out to a store and just buy an xbox and grand theft auto. The parents in many cases enable the kids to be accessible to violent media. Maybe if the parents spent more time doing other activities with their kids, they would spend less time with videogames. I believe the media is never solely to blame in these cases, it just acts as a scapegoat that people can throw blame at.
ReplyDeleteWhile I 100% agree with both you and Kendall, are videogames not a large contributing factor? Videogames are generally a time-consuming activity, and while we may have presentations and midterms and exams and papers, children have what boils down to tons more free time than us. So when they have more time to do what they like, they will do it. So combining this long-term habitual playing with the fact that young minds are more impressionable, would that not slowly almost trance a child into thinking this is acceptable behavior in real life? What makes videogames a valid contributing factor in violent children is that the violence in these games is doable. While plenty of games have spaceships and lasers, knives, baseball bats, and guns are easily accessible.
ReplyDeleteWhile I do not think they are the sole factor in making a child violent, they are a large factor. So we cannot blame just videogames, but we cannot undermine their influence at the same time.