Violent video games: keep out of the hands of youth
By Kelly Running
In the past few years video games have taken a huge leap. When I was young the game Grand Theft Auto on Playstation One was out. It was an aerial view of a city, people were little dots, and the vehicles were just different coloured rectangles. Yes the idea of the game was the same steal a car, complete a task, and shoot others – just don’t get caught by the cops.
Today Grand Theft Auto has completely evolved. Over the years, through the Playstation Two and into the Playstation Three platform, Grand Theft Auto has continually become more realistic. During the winter my roommate was playing Grand Theft Auto V. The view follows in a first person format. On the ground you see around your player. The cars are improved, as are the weapons, but with those graphic card improvements come the more realistic violence including blood splatter.
The city is full of people and as you walk your character down the street you can choose to beat people up with your fists, shoot them with guns, or run them down in a vehicle – which you steal by pulling someone out of the driver’s seat and shooting them.
Kids today have become immune to violence because of these realistic video games. Yes I grew up with them, but not to the same graphic nature. I also grew up watching television shows like Power Rangers, but their violence was to protect people from bad guys, they were super heroes, they weren’t just walking down the street beating the crap out of people.
Now I use Grand Theft Auto as an example of violent video games, but am not saying it is the only one with graphics of this nature. However, researching the topic I discovered there was a 2008 study titled, Grand Theft Childhood, which reported that 60 percent of middle school boys who played at least one M-rated (Mature) video game were more likely to hit or beat someone up compared to 39 percent of middle school boys who did not play violent video games.
In these types of video games, if youth are given access to them, the player is rewarded for violence thus reinforcing this behaviour. Youth are still developing their sense of right and wrong, their moral compasses are forming, and to play violent video games during these formative stages in life affect their perception of the world. Thus violence actually becomes a form of problem solving, while it can also become associated with happiness and pleasure as they’re rewarded in the game for it.
They become desensitized to violence and it becomes commonplace to them even in real life, despite people saying “Oh, it’s not real.” Developing minds can’t separate real violence from fantasy violence, which leads to them mimicking the game.
I personally have played the game “Watch Dogs.” In it you’re a vigilante, but it is much like Grand Theft Auto in the sense that you’re shooting people (the game doesn’t let you shoot unless it’s an enemy though) and stealing cars. I personally liked the driving the best out of the game, there were speed challenges where you had to race through the city from the starting line to the finish line.
I found that if I played the game and then left my house to drive somewhere I wanted to go fast, wanted to zip in and out of traffic; I had to consciously make sure I was driving properly because in a video game if you die, you simply respawn and no one is injured. In real life it’s not that easy, in fact it’s messy and very dangerous.
For youth still developing and not fully understanding the difference between how to act in the real world and how to keep video games separate, this is something that they wouldn’t consciously be able to recognize, which is why there are maturity ratings on games in the first place.
Beyond The Sims: Are violent video games harmless or harmful?
By Lynne Bell
This week, my mission is to (somehow!) come up with an argument in defense of violent video games.
Clearly, I am not part ofthe targeted demographic for games. Add to that the fact that my very limited exposure to video games consists of having a Sims (like playing Barbies, but on a computer screen, as far as I could tell...) fan in my home over a decade ago, this does present a challenge.
Thanks to some research kindly supplied by my dear editor, I can offer some surprising statistics that don't endorse video games, but do debunk some commonly-held beliefs about their effect on youth.
Significantly, most of this research comes from the U.S. With America's relaxed gun laws and longstanding (and at times, violent) video game culture, these stats-however much I personally want to doubt and dislike them-are hard to refute. Naturally, a link between violent video games and violent behavior is difficult to prove or disprove, but the stats are interesting, so here goes:
Oddly enough, between 1995 and 2008, the U.S. arrest rate for juvenile murders fell almost 72 percent, and the overall arrest rate for all juvenile crimes fell by almost 50 percent during the same period of time; all while video games sales in the U.S. during this period quadrupled.
In 2005, the USA's annual juvenile murder rate was 27.9 murders per million residents, compared to a rate of 3.1 murders (by juveniles) per million residents in Japan; while video games sales were $5.20 per capita in the States compared to $47 per capita in Japan.
A U.S. Secret Service review in 2004 found that only 1/8 of perpetrators responsible for school attacks and school shootings showed evidence of interest in violent video games. On the contrary, the review stated that these individuals showed more interest in violent books, movies and in their own violent writings.
Many studies state that rather than being a malign influence on youth, violent video games are instead a healthy outlet for aggression that may otherwise emerge as real-world violence. One even goes as far as saying that some violent video games give young players a sense of perceived control that helps teens regulate their emotions during play, and even reduces stressors that might cause them to otherwise act out in real time with real people.
In an effort to add some “real” research to this column, I checked out two violent video game series-Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto. Call of Duty replicates warfare and actual battles. Arguments could be made for players experiencing the extreme stress, danger, trauma and heartbreak (you lose comrades) of actual battle.
As for Grand Theft Auto, well, I got nuthin'. When the protagonists are a young street hustler, a retired bank robber and-wait for it-a terrifying psychopath, I'm clearly in the wrong game. However, I know some perfectly sane, good and non-violent people who play the game and show no signs of anti-social and/or violent behavior. Clearly, they can easily recognize the difference between fantasy and reality.
Perhaps some troubled, potentially violent individuals are drawn to violent video games. However, I think I am generationally-challenged when it comes to the actual effect of violent video games on youth. In the past, the introduction of any new media was greeted with apphrension and alarm by some people, and much to my surprise, statistics show that this may also be the case for some video games, too.
