Violence and Videogames

[Dominic]

wait a minute....you're getting college credit for talking about VIDEO GAMES??

ironically, this makes me want to go on a violent rampage.

[JuntMonkey]

I don't believe it, and my kids will be allowed to play what they want. I have no scientific evidence though...

Penn said on Penn & Teller's "BS" that school violence has actually declined since the early 90's, and that includes Columbine and the copycats.

And on Columbine, I borderline sympathize with the shooters. A lot of high school kids are major [censored] scumbags. There was this one major bully/douche/Napoleon complex kid from my high school who died recently. I was thrilled to hear that he died.

[an0nym0u5]

[ QUOTE ]
wait a minute....you're getting college credit for talking about VIDEO GAMES??

ironically, this makes me want to go on a violent rampage.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah lol, it's an elective. My brother tried to get into Game Theory at Berkeley and they put his Blackjack card counting skills to the test (among other things), but he said he was rusty and didn't pass the tests to get into the class.

[Full-Metall]

When events like Columbine happen there is always a scapegoat. That time it was video games.

[Edge34]

[ QUOTE ]

And on Columbine, I borderline sympathize with the shooters. A lot of high school kids are major [censored] scumbags. There was this one major bully/douche/Napoleon complex kid from my high school who died recently. I was thrilled to hear that he died.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you're serious, you're one [censored] up dude. That's not even close to funny, and you should really think about where your happiness in someone's death comes from. And sympathize with the Columbine kids? My ass. Its not my fault they had bad parents. I sympathize with the parents who lost kids because these little brats couldn't handle getting picked on in a way that didn't involve trying to kill a bunch of people.

[Gugel]

Video games unfortunately do increase violent thoughts. There are a number of legit psychological studies on this. For example, they took lots of people, half played violent video games, the other half played tetris or something. then they were given a bat and instructed to beat the crap out of a dummy. the people that played violent video games beat the dummy more savagely than the people that played tetris. other studies showed that playing violent video games made people more likely to engage in violent behavior in the first place.

obviously this doesnt apply to everyone. furthermore, it's not to say that violent video games can make a a happy person want to kill everything in the world. it just says, on average, you become slightly more aggressive after playing violent video games.

[Jiggymike]

I think people who are inspired by videogames to commit violent acts would have been violent whether or not they had played those games, they simply may have been given new ideas or a little push over the edge. I am too lazy to look for the link but I know in that college shooting in Montreal (?) last year the shooter said something about "life being a video game" and "sometimes you just gotta die." Still, this guy was clearly disturbed, not your run of the mill person who just felt like shooting.

[guids]

with the pussifying and spoiling of our kids, some undirected brutal rage is a good thing for em.

[nick604]

I know that videogames weren't blamed here, but if you have time you might find it useful to read about the British case of James Bulger, where a pair of 10 year-olds abducted and murdered a 2 year-old toddler. Here, the horror movie 'Child's Play 3' was used as a scapegoat for the boys' actions.

Whenever this issue is discussed, I always remember a brilliant line that Wes Craven penned for his film 'Scream': "Horror movies don't create psychos...horror movies only make psychos more creative".

[guids]

Seriously, my mom used to nag at my brother about playing mortal kombat for sega, and my dad always said "listen, you let them play mario brothers all the time, and it doesnt make them want to eat mushrooms or be plumbers, so forget about it." we always laughed our ass off at that one.