can violent games realy make kids into killers

is it realy possibl. parents keep kids away from the games because of this but can it realy happen

a study shows that violent games only make agresev thoughts npt behaver
but can the thoughts become sopowerfull that it sarts to efect the behavier

I just find it away to burn off my aggrivation.

Do games make killers?

No, but man can you point a finger at poor parenting. Without a parents love, interest, understanding, and guidence, you are in essence leaving thier formative years to X-Box, Playstation, MTV and whatever 30 minute commercial that passes for cartoons these days.

But we live in an age where people like to point the blame finger rather than actually believe that THEY may be part of the problem.

I will admit that some of the games these days do seem to be a little over the top in violent content. Add to this the large amount of scenes of violence and death available on the internet which I am sure has a desensitizing effect on young impressionable minds.
I argued with a guy a while ago who was showing people video clips he had saved on his mobile phone of death and violence from the Iraqi conflict. He was quite gleeful about it all until I accused him of glorification of death and watching snuff movies - saved on company issued hardware I might add.
I even found that one of my young nephews had received similar material on his mobile phone from friends at school.
Violence is all around these days, whether real or realistically portrayed by the entertainment industry and I firmly believe it can influence young people.

I agree with you Britguy. Thats why parents need to step up and take ownership of this issue. you are not going to prevent kids from seeing the stuff and forbiding it usualy has the opposite effect you want, but spending time discussing issues like this with your children pays huge dividens IMHO

There is very little research on the subject, but what is out there essentially says no, they can not.

What I know about psychology is that aggressive people will act violently when presented with violent things. Someone with a bad temper will probably have some sort of issue with overindulgence in violent video games. Does this mean that they are going to go out and kill people? Possibly, but highly unlikely. Usually the video game was chosen as a catalyst for acting out their violent fantasies. If it wasn't the games it would be something else.

Video games are not to blame for the motives killers.

You just made an excellent point FredT, one that I have discussed many times before. Bad parenting is the cause of so many issues amongst young people.
Links to the other thread about Ritalin and ADHD.
I see bad parenting every time I step out my front door, it's all part of the blameless culture these days. Problems are always somebody elses fault and the government should do more...etc... etc...

i would emphatically say 'no way' to the OP's question.
I work in the video game industry, surrounded by them day in and day out. Theres around 100 other people in my department in the same situation and i think its fairly safe to say theres no killers working here. ( i hope!! ).
Obviously children are more open to outside influences and games play a part in their lives, but they dont learn stuff from games that they couldnt pick up from any other source they are exposed to in everyday life . (magazines, Tv and film). And those media outlets, 9 times out of 10, portray real events with real people . I like the idea of many fellow posters in here.....and i also think bad parenting is mostly to blame. If a video game is violent or contains violent imagery then the game becomes classified with an age rating. (BBFC or ELSPA here in Europe).Theyre placed there for a reason. They were brought in because of pressure put on the industry to classify games. If parents still think 'little johnny' should be playing GTA 4 even though it has a big 18 rating on the box, then thats the parents choice. There will always be strange people out there who feel the need to hurt others, but these people existed long before video games became popular. Lets take a trip back to the 80's, video games were still blobs and blocks so something has to get the blame for violent behaviour. And the most popular entertainment medium of the time - videos - and 'video nasties'. Give it 20 years and something new will turn up to become the latest scapegoat.

Well, being someone who has played violent games for over 10 years, and I mean I have spent hours on end watching people literally turned to blood splatter by artillery or turned to chunky tuna bits with blood going 50 yards wide... I am not violent at all unless threatened. A game is a game to me, the problem is with those few morons and psychos who think a game is like the real world, that is where the problem comes from. Also, without proper parenting (it is the parents fault more than anything else) the child thinks the game is like the real world, so pushing a button to end someone’s like is just a game to them. I was watching military channel a day ago and they commented about the newer and far more mechanical aircraft they are going to use. They went on to comment about the ground vehicles they hope to have run by someone in a control center thousands of miles away and the col. said I quote: "The best soldiers will be the ones who were the best video gamer players when they were kids." That is where the problem comes from, the military even has a semi truck with computers and military combat simulators for elementary students to play. Not sure where the article went though.

I must agree some games do go the whole nine yards and more so on violence... Yet that just makes things more interesting when you want to terrorize someone in a game.

The parent is the responsible one for teaching the kid/child/young one that a game is just that, a game, it is in no way realistic. Blame the parent not the game.

Put on a game called "Black", and that will make one think that shooting people is fun. The sounds of the bullets firing is completely realistic as well.

ive been playin violent video games for as long as i can remember and ive never even thrown a punch in my life

im not a violent person AT ALL in fact i consider my self a pacifist

i still play a lot of violent video games.. everythings cool

poor parenting is to blame in these situations.. of course the games do have some effects on the children but i dont think its just the games

My simple answer to this.

Videogames are like a catalyst.
They *CAN* turn someone into an accidental or intentional killer.
But only if they already had the potential themselves.

I think this same arguement's been made for everything from jitterbugging to pool halls, rock and roll, pot and pre marital sex, you know, all the good stuff.

With that said, it is interesting to hear reports about military use of video games to desensitize new recruits to killing.

www.theage.com.a u

Dr Robert Sparrow, of Monash University, who is researching the ethics of military training, said using computer games raised serious ethical questions, with anecdotal evidence from the US suggesting some Iraq veterans experienced war as a video game.

Simulations have intensified and made a design problem of a moral dilemma that's always there in military training," he said. "You're teaching people to do something the reality of which is always going to be beyond the scope of training."

Paradoxically, the article goes on to state that battlefield sims are also being used for therapy for returned soldiers with post traumatic stress disorder.

I think the whole thing was best summed up by someone on a mailing list who said,
"If video games affected people than the kids of the pac man generation would be running around in darkened warehouses, swallowing pills and listening to repetitive music. . ."



[edit on 20-6-2007 by fingapointa]

Not just bad parenting, but bad single parenting. I think the biggest problem we Americans have is the break down of the family unit. It is extremely important for children to grow up with both parents. Now I am not saying that all children from a single parent household turn out bad, but I think it is more often than not.

I was at the video game store the other day and a boy of about 12 or 13 wanted to buy a M (mature) rated game with his own money. The store owner refused to sell the kid the game. The kid asked his mom and she went and purchased it for him, no questions asked.

I agree that the parents need to take responsibility for their children. I personally have four children (11m, 8f, 4m, 0m) and I love to play my Grand Theft Auto. I not only don't let my children play, I don't let them watch me play it at all. I do think letting children watch and play these uber-violent games can desensitize them to violence.

Bottom line: parents must parent their children, not put a video on and let that be in lieu of parenting.

I don't blame video games for the apparent uptick in violence among kids, I blame poor parenting. Take Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold for instance. For Chrissakes, the kids were building pipe bombs in their parents' garage! If there were ever a case for parental intervention, this was it.

First off, Hi FredT. Bay Area resident here!

Ok, now as a parent of a 14 year old boy, no video games do not make kids go violent. It's the parents negligence that can make a child turn out that way. If my son is online I know what sites he goes to, and I block some I know I don't want him on. But the best thing is being able to sit down and talk to him and be open and honest. My son grasps what reality is and what a game is. He knows what a gun can do, why not to use one and when to use one. We made sure to teach him the rights and wrongs.
Just my 2 cents

I also believe that it is bad parenting that make children violent and not video games.

Also in my personal opinion ( and as a father of two ) I think it would help if more parents talked to there kids at an early age about what the consequences of violence are and just how permanent death is.

Maybe in our American society we sugar coat to many things for children.

I also agree with previous posts indicating bad parenting can lead to vilence in later life. Not just single parenting is to blame though, a family unit can just as easily cause conflict if physical abuse is present in the family household and enough car shown towards the child from an early age.

A while back we looked into a study into a young offenders institution. The violent children often preferred to play un-violent games, whereas the less violent kids played the most violent games and watched the most gruesome films if given the chance. Unfortunately I have since forgotten the actual name of the study, but a basic outline showed games and films do not play a key role in the behavious of the kids.

I will bet anyone 1000 dollars if this statement isnt true.....

Video games save lives!

LOL, I know it sounds funny but hear me out.

Couldn't the case be, violent video games help potential murderers vent the urge to kill.

Lets say 20 murderers were in a room together, sorta like a very dangerous AA meeting. This MA(Murderers Anonymous) would be givin ultra real 3D 1st person shooter games. lets even throw in a virtual reality helmet and some guns. Lets say 7 potential murderers were at this meeting and were on the verge of killing someone. This game somehow lets these nice murderers feel what it would be like to kill someone. They like it, but realize they couldn't actually do this in real life. That would mean 7 lives were saved with video games.

Add this to the potential murderous intent by thousands if not millions of people, These games vent 10,000 potential murderers' frustrations enough to relax them and not want to kill someone. 10,000 lives are saved.....You get the point.

Bottom line. Video games are not going away. Parents if your child is a potential murderer(you should probably know this) give them a shoot-em-up bloody rampage game and see what happens.

People are going to kill whether games are involved or not. Blaming a game for someone murdering someone is outragous. They are crazy, not the games!

IM going to go play Battlefield 2 and snipe some faces!!

[edit on 23-6-2007 by IMAdamnALIEN]

Originally posted by ResinLA
Put on a game called "Black", and that will make one think that shooting people is fun. The sounds of the bullets firing is completely realistic as well.

If you're weak-minded, sure. I own Black, and have played it quite a bit back in the day, but I don't think shooting people is fun.