Toying With Family Gaming

Violent video games don't make killers: study

Fri Mar 2, 2007 8:15AM EST

By Lisa Baertlein

LOS ANGELES (Reuters Life!) - Do video games kill? The jury is still out on whether violent video games lead to violent behavior in children, but a new study asserts that killer games do not make killer kids.

University of Southern California sociologist Karen Sternheimer, who has been researching the topic since 1999, said blaming video games for youth violence fails to take into account other major factors.

"A symphony of events controls violence," said Sternheimer, who began her research after some experts blamed the video game "Doom" for the gun rampage at Columbine High School in Colorado in which two students killed 13 people and then themselves.

It was a tragic and, very fortunately, rare event and it was discouraging to see that the conversation often started and stopped at video games."

Sternheimer's article, "Do Video Games Kill?," will appear in the American Sociological Association's Contexts magazine as the European Union weighs outlawing certain violent games and harmonizing national penalties for retailers caught such products to under-age children.

Her research, which involved analyzing newspaper coverage and FBI statistics detailing trends on youth crime, found that in the 10 years after the release of "Doom" -- and many other brutal-sounding titles -- juvenile homicide arrest rates in the United States fell 77 percent.

Students have less than a 7 in 10 million chance of being killed at school, Sternheimer found.

"If we want to understand why young people become homicidal, we need to look beyond the games they play ... (or) we miss some of the biggest pieces of the puzzle," she said, listing community and family violence, suburban alienation and less parental involvement as other possible factors.

Sternheimer said violent video games have come to carry the baggage of social anxieties over youth violence as the industry has grown into a $10 billion-plus behemoth that rivals Hollywood box office sales.

This also provides a quick fix for when the public demands an explanation for why middle-class children become murderers.

In the United States, the video game industry is self-regulated and retailers deciding whether or not to sell M-rated games for mature audiences to minors. These games carry content deemed appropriate for people aged 17 and older.

Sternheimer said putting the blame on video games exonerated the environment in which the child was raised and also removed the culpability of the criminals.

"It's a complicated problem that merits more than a simple solution," she said

© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.

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While the writer in this particular article says that such toys and games do not breed violence among youths, I feel otherwise. Though science and research has not proved it, I believe that it has some psychological bearing. Through the daily violent gaming, they unconsciously form an illusion as to how to escape from their problems. Such games opens a door way as to which field one should look at in order to solve their problems. In this case, it is violence. It stimulates the creativity in each and every youth to think along these lines and harbor such ideas. That is why in times of desperation youths turn to such problem-solving methods as these daily activities has form an impression in them.

In a short story written by Saki, entitled the Toys of Peace, he writes of how this couple comes across an article in a London morning paper. The article is about how giving young boys guns and armies to play with only encourages their primitive instincts for fighting. Parents should instead give their children “peace toys”. Instead of miniature soldiers, give them miniature civilians. Instead of guns, give them ploughs and tools of industry. It is hoped that this would change a boy’s love for fighting. As Saki has pointed out, it is what the little toys that children play with in their infant years that decide what big toys they still play with in their adulthood.

However, I do agree with both Saki and the writer of this article in one point. The key deciding factor as to how youths find solutions to their problems are their parents and families. As I strongly belief, the teaching methods of parents defines how their children grows. A broken up family usually ends in having an equally broken-up child. As the writer mentioned in the article, violent gaming should not be used as an excuse to shield the parents from irresponsible upbringing. It is the parents who decide what their children do. It is the parents who bear the responsibility of bringing the child upright. The lack of responsibility among the parents should not be undermined. A key understanding that Saki had in his story was that what is important are the infant years of a child. Those are the years that shape the character of the child. Responsible and good parents should swarm their children in these years with moral values. If they have been properly influenced by their parents, then no matter what artificial forces they meet later in life, the roots of these moral values will keep them standing straight up. But if the opposite occurs, then it would be difficult to replant the already tall but crooked tree.

Of course at my childhood years I have yet to experience the responsibilities that come with age. Many things I have said in this review are mere assumptions, but these two stories have taught me how important it is to properly raise a child up.

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