Do Video Games Cause Violence?

It's pretty saddening seeing a kid who has next to no chance at a decent life because they have terrible, terrible parents. They were right there, too, and the mom was clearly speaking English at one point.

Yeah, it's really not the kid's fault. I felt badly for the little dog in the background too for some strange reason.

what I want to know is when trailer parks started getting HD cable, I mean, Nascar doesn't look that great anyway, why have HD?

In my opinion, Video games don't influence violence. Lack of parenting and (Lack of) positive influences in a childs life influences violence. Most likely those "teens" that blamed video games for their violence acts more then likely had some sort of issue at home that allowed them to harness their issues into a video game which became "their reality." If people would distinguish reality from a video game when their child is playing it then the child will be able to comprehend whats real and whats not allowing them to enjoy the videogame without taking it into a reality aspect. Those children that lack any positive feedback or even good raising are the ones that can easily fall into the whole "Video games cause Violence" stereotype that adults use to benefit themselves to blame for their lack of raising their child correctly.

How many adults throw their kids onto a video game to get them to shut up instead of actually raising them? I can guarantee a load of fail parents do. If they can't take the time to understand their kids and want to help their kids that's how psycho people develop. Look at all the serial killers, most of them, if not all of them, have some "bad past life" that influence them to do bad things thinking it's okay. If they had a good home life would they have turned out the same? Maybe so, but it would have greatly decreased that chance that's for sure.

Video games aren't an influence on violence. Bad parenting is and video games are just a scapegoat.

I completely agree with Rinako. Kids need parents to grow up, and nowadays there are a sickening number of parents who will just throw their kids in front of video games (in older generations it was TV) to keep them entertained.

And then when the kid is a drug-addicted, murderous psychopath they blame it on video games instead of actually being a parent. I'm sure all (or at least most) of us on this site are past our teenage years, and I'm sure we can all vouch for the same thing: without good, responsible parents that care, it would have been a lot harder to deal with all of our problems in those years. Good parents will stick with their kids in the good times and the bad times, slowly releasing their grip and letting them turn into fully-grown and responsible adults themselves.

While news reports of video-game-related violence are certainly prevalent nowadays...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28623160/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28704783/

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/secu/article.php/1564001/Violence-Breaks-out-in-Los-Angeles-Cyber-Cafes.htm

http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/2010-10-27/story/jacksonville-mom-shakes-baby-interrupting-farmville-pleads-guilty-murder

...or even of extreme (READ: mortal) levels of addiction...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4137782.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8600517.stm

...in seemingly all cases, these particular people don't tend to represent the average rational person, I would think, nor do their extreme actions (or inactions) demonstrate a rational perspective.

So while video games certainly, to my mind, directly or indirectly influenced their activities, ultimately it was their judgment as adults or as near-adults that lead to the unfortunate results in all cases (and not the games in question, whether Halo, Farmville, Starcraft, CS, or Mortal Kombat...really.)

Yeah... in my opinion it all still falls back on parenting. A role model or a parent needs to have a positive impact and explain the difference between reality and video games. Reading all the news articles make me ask the following question:

What did the parents do for these children to make them better?

Some of the most recent articles like the woman who killed her baby over farmville... I think the news high lighted that she was playing farmville just to add a more dramatic effect and also prove once more "Video games influence violence." If she was doing anything else they would have most likely pinned it on PPD or various other things they could possibly think of. The media likes to make gaming a bad thing and parents can easily use it as an excuse to ignore the fact they're terrible parents.

idk.. i think people are much more complex than these study's allow for.

People become violent because of various things in their life and not just one thing like video games, or owning a gun or broccoli (seriously.. *** broccoli >:U).

I have played games since I was about 6 years old. Resident Evil in its time was grim, but lets also go further back and think about Splatter House!!

Ive played all of these types of games and it certainly hasnt made me debate getting a bat and going to town on the local populace.

I am also a martial arts instructor, Ki-Aikido, which promotes clear and calm thinking. So yeah....... hasnt had an influence on me at all. Quite the opposite in fact.

Splattering a persons head across a wall in a game certainly has a de-sensitising (sp?) factor in it but causing violence? No not at all.

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Nope, depends everything from the parents.

Do video games cause violence?

Did video games cause Jack the Ripper to kill?

Idiots blaming video games for violence is idiots way of scapegoating their horrible parenting skills on entertainment and media.

Blaming violence on video games is like blaming teen pregnancy on Twilight.

It's been shown over and over again that children model behavior.

So when superheroes beat up the bad guys in cartoons can we blame them too?? Video games aren't the only violence a child is exposed to, What about Tv, movies and music?

Like others are saying, it has a lot to do with parenting. You don't have to buy anything, or let them play a game/watch a movie you don't think they are ready for while living under your roof.

look at world history before computers. See any violence?

/end of thread.

No.

No.

/Continue thread

If video games caused violence, I'd be in jail right now.

no, stupid kids who believe its real cause violence.

Thank you all very much for your input, your comments have helped me loads :) No I'm not gonna cite your comments for sources lol >.> I have plenty of those already. But! Those links people were posting were also very helpful to me, even those from the other side of the coin :) I appreciate it very much ^.^ Thankyou!

Now to go look up Jack Thompson.. >.>a ta ta!