Do videogames and TV influence people?

[Tachiba]

I've noticed in some news, kids who get caught doing a  crime usually say a certain item influenced them to do so.  I remember the old GTA controversy, with some kids who did crimes
said that they got the idea from GTA, and their parents were all offended and pissy like,"We should have this banned!" or "Let's sue!".  I remember the two boys who went bum-bashing, and people were saying that they got it from Date Movie, as it showed a lady beating up a Michael Jackson-looking homeless man.  And the boy who killed his friend at his middle school(southwood) said he wanted to be a serial killer after watching scary flicks.  Although the GTA case was the parent's fault because they didnt notice the big M saying for 17 year olds and older, these other ones werent the parent's fault. 


Do you think people,mainly kids, can get inspired by the stuff they see on TV and videogames, and imitate it?

Discuss.

 

[Venetia]

Of course they influence kids.

THAT'S WHY YOU DON'T GIVE THINGS WITH 'R' AND 'M' RATINGS TO CHILDREN AAAAAAAGGGGHHH

Look, kids are DUMB. Some are VERY DUMB. But it's not RockStar's fault when little Jimmy's mom didn't pay attention to the 'M' rating on the back, and he thought it'd be fun to pop a cap in his teacher to rob her!

Look at any baby animal in the world who is nurtured by its parents. A kitten looks at his mom cleaning her face a certain way, and then the kitten imitates it. Children are pre-designed to learn through imitation.

It's the parent's problem to teach children what they should and should not imitate, and to try and limit extremely negative influences until they're smart enough to figure out how to handle it appropriately!

 

[moog]

Its not only video games and tv. All forms of media are involved. Media itself is just a scapegoat for irresponsible parenting. Violent things may be fun to the average bystander, but to a child its as haphazardness as a gun.

Anytime a video game company is sued for making a product "detrimental" to the user, I just laugh. Parents need to get their shit straight.

 

[Tachiba]

Well I think it depends mainly on your parenting skills and trust.  If you never taught your kids right from wrong, they'd probably do stupid stuff.  My parents trust me because they know for damn sure I wouldnt do that, and because they always disiplined me.  Whupped me for eating a cookie once.

Fear is a major part in parenting skills, and the more the child has, the less likely they'll do stupid crap.

 

[Incognitus]

So-called "Holy Books" influence people to do ridiculous and stupid things to themselves and each other - why would anything else be excluded?

 

[Venetia]

yeah you know, I was forced to read the bible when I was a kid, and stories about men raping their daughters to keep the family line going and circumsizing men so they can kill them while they're demoblized by hurtdicks was a hell of a lot more troubling than watching puppetmaster 3, that's for fuckin sure!

 

[Stupid Penguin]

I think it depends on the kid.

Growing up, I was never censored on what I could or could not watch. I can remember owning and watching all of the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th movies and watching them tons before I was 6.

If the kid is smart and knows the difference between right, wrong, reality, and fantasy, then such things shouldn't be a problem.

 

[FlippyD]

My Dad used to play Doom with me and my brother when we were kids (like, little kids.)

Soo, yeah. Depends on the kid and the parents.

 

[___]

It's a parent's responsibility to instill proper context in a child and know his child well enough to exercise good judgment in what media they expose the child to, and obviously an adult is responsible for his own violent actions; trying to place the blame for violence on the media is fallacious and does not hold up to a workable model of social responsibility. Besides that, children are historically no stranger to violence, and in fact video games may provide an effective substitute to competitive, violent behavior - in a safe environment where risk of injury is vastly reduced.

Competition and violent play are a part of the human experience. The idea that video games have introduced this factor into a culture and childhood historically absent of violence is ridiculous; before video games, there was cops and robbers, cowboys and indians, the senseless and serialized slaughter of rodents, birds and lizards with bb guns and other low power firearms by adolescents (whether or not you approve of killing animals without real purpose or benefit, you must admit it's a violent, aggressive, and visceral experience to at least the same degree as killing aliens in a video game). Before the industrial era, life itself was so violent and full of death you were lucky to make it to an age where today's children start playing video games, let alone have the opportunity to complain about the violence your own children were exposed to.

Proponents of bans on violent games claim that the correlation between the rise of video game popularity and the decline in violent crime and antisocial behavior in youth over the past couple decades does not account for other social influences, while vehemently defending the position that the correlation between violent video game consumption and antisocial behavior amongst some individuals proves causation. You may notice a slight err in thinking here. Studies have shown a short term increase in aggressive behavior after playing violent games, which usually subsides within about a half an hour. What the censorship-happy usually fail to disclose is that these behavioral changes are exhibited after any kind of vigorous competitive activity, whether or not violence is a part of the activity. I can't back this up off the bat but I'm willing to bet you'd find similar results in people after a bicycle race. It's just a natural result of heightened stress and arousal.

 

[arbiter]

;D

 

[tyranius]

video games and tv may influence KIDS but not adults unless the adult is mentally challenged.
It is true that some people kill because of games (some guys here in brazil kidnapped a boy just to get his account in Tibia, a crappy ass game if you ask me) but it depends on the person... I guess that it's written on the genes that you will have a thirst for blood when you grow up and that information is written right when you were born. Millions of people play violent games everyday and don't go out on the streets and shout "NEW GAME" and start blasting anyone's head.

 

[___]

@Tyranius: assuming for a moment that your assertion that violence is genetic is true, what exactly do video games have to do with it? If a person is prone to violence genetically, isn't it just as likely, if not more likely, that he is especially drawn to violent games because of his violent tendencies as that he becomes more violent because of the games?

As for kidnapping over video game accounts, game accounts have monetary value. It is not at all surprising that criminals are interested in them. After all it's a hell of a lot easier to con someone into giving up their WoW account info than to con them into giving up their bank account number - and when you think about it realistically your average high-value WoW account holder probably has more value in his WoW account than his bank account anyway.

When I was playing WoW, my guild's former main raid tank sold his account for $1500 because he was no longer playing and wanted to pay down some debts. That's a good month's income in many countries, and a year's income in many others; when it's so easy to steal compared to physical objects worth the same amount it's no surprise it's happening and it has nothing whatsoever to do with violence in games - after all the thieves are not likely to even be players.

 

[Griefstalker]

Video games are one of the favorite scapegoat for child-adolescent violence nowadays.  Kids bashed his friends head with a hammer and he own GTA.  Coincidence?  Probably, yeah.  Kids aren't as stupid as you'd think.  First thing they do after they do something bad is find a suitable excuse for what they did.  "It wasn't my fault, I saw it on tv!".  Most of the time, I bet their victim was simply pissing them off.  Violence is a typical human behavior, for adults and child alike.  There is so many reasons for a kid to be violent, television and video games are merely a fraction of the influence.  The only way to prevent a kid to be violent is education.

Be it from a parent or a teacher, a kid must be taught the rules of society.  It's not ok to bash someone's head open with a hammer because you feel like it.  Merely telling the kid is not enough tho.  Violence is something recurrent.  A child who does something bad must be taught again and again not to do it, he must be punished.  The real problem is that people nowadays are afraid to be to strict.  They don't want other people to judge them, to think they're bad parents.  Instead, they let their child do whatever he wants and that's really irresponsible.  If you don't correct a child when he does something wrong, he'll keep doing it, that's a fact.

If the parents did their jobs and the kid still end up bashing someone head open then...  Maybe it's the kid's fault.  It's not ALWAYS someone else's fault.  The kid is human too, he have the ability to make choice.  Parents and teachers are only there to guide him to the right path, he have the choice to take it or not. Therefore, video games and television are only being accused of being responsible for child violence because people don't want to admit who really is at fault:  Parents, kids, teachers, society...  The list goes on.  Things aren't always as they seem, anything could push someone to be violent.  Thinking that by eliminating violence in medias, you eliminate violence itself, is delusional. 

 

[Twirly]

Video games are one of the favorite scapegoat for child-adolescent violence nowadays.

I totally agree with that.

 

[moog]

Video games are one of the favorite scapegoat for child-adolescent violence nowadays.

I totally agree with that.

Media itself is just a scapegoat for irresponsible parenting.

D:

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

Yes videogames and TV DO influence people.
But so does paintings.  And books.  And even history.  Shit, we gotta stop teaching that at school D:
What if someone learns about the holocaust and the KKK and are racist D:
Fuck get WWII and the history of early film out of the classes! GOGOGO!!!

Well, then there's social studies/current events.  That's like history.  Only now.  And that's like, all sorts of violence.  Wars and everything.  Fuck, get rid of newspapers now.  We don't want that.

Oh yeah paintings, forgot about that.  Let's persecute those damn artists, they drew like a battle scene with George Washingto--there's that history again.  Damn you can't escape violence can you?

 

[FlippyD]

Is it really necessary and relevant to have a discussion about this? It's been discussed ad-nauseam and it's all just so irrelevant and one-sided (at least here.) You're pretty much arguing against the weak misguided logic of concerned parents concerning media they don't understand.

It's gotten to the point where I actually do want to wholesale ban violent video games, tv, music and movies just so all the nerd-raging fanboys can shut the fuck up. Do you all really have to go into a frenzy everytime the concept of censorship comes up? Do you have to get all pretentious and ironic? If it's so goddamn obvious why don't you go "Huh, well they're obviously wrong" and move on?

I will make a Jack Thompson cyborg clone if I have to.

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

ixis, do so please.
it would be ever so much fun.

 

[___]

Would it be disbarred and facing civil and criminal suits like the real Jack Thomspon? :D

Seriously though, I could present a very solid and convincing argument supporting the idea that video games and media in general somehow produce violence, but I believe those arguments are bunk, based on flawed logic and bad science, and more a tool of generational / culture warfare than actual social guidance. The rhetorical tools are the same as those used against rock music, television, jazz, etc. in their own times, and they're all utterly wrong.

 

[Emtch]

With a full and strong mind, nothing influences people to do anything. It's too bad that humans are weak minded. But I don't really think a television series could make people do stuff, maybe small children, but not people older than that.
I watch lots of fighting movies, play fighting games, listen to goregrind and death metal and other stuff like that. I don't go around assaulting people just because I saw/heard it from media. Blaming actions on media is a bad excuse.