why is there such a big debate on violent video games
By moose8
@moose8 (483)
Canada
June 17, 2008 5:33pm CST
i dont understand what the problem with violent video games is. i mean ya they do show us how violence is all around in our community but its not lik kids will actually think you can like respawn 3 seoncds after you were killed. thats just ridiculous. any kid who thinks he can do that is too dumb to even own those games
1 response
@taface412 (3175)
• United States
17 Jun 08
I dunno...I tend to agree with the views that say media influences people...and I am not just talking children.
Let's take the movie Scream for example. You remeber the sequel's opening scene in the movie theater. A lot of people dressed up in the scream costume. ANd the killer was in the audience dresses up as well. Now do you remember the scene where the girl was stabbed in front of the movie screen while everyone was cheering on the killer...thinking it was a publicity act for the movie?
Well, this is a little extreme. But there are studies in the psychology area that show how numerous exposure can desensitize a person. And more and more you see situations where people do not help others in a harmful situation....just recently I read about a 70 yearold man who was ran down in a street in broad daylight and there were several witnesses who did not offer to help.
I do believe that Pavlov's Classical Conditioning and some other psychologist's theories can very well apply to this subject. And I do see where repeated viewing of harmful and violent scenes can de-sensitize a person...and it is even more scary if this is done with children, because they are more influential as their minds develop.
Check out these types of theories on human behavior.
You have a good topic to debate here Moose!!
@phoenix25 (1541)
• United States
30 Aug 08
I have to argue with your comment about conditioning. If a person is playing video games, the only conditioning that they would technically be experiencing is reinforcement of the behavior of getting high scores from killing more and performing in-game tasks and the hand coordination movements to do that. Conditioning is about teaching behavior and it also takes reinforcement. The fun of playing can serve as reinforcement, but that would just encourage a person to play the game more. Video games are not real, so conditioning would not technically teach a violent behavior like to shoot or strangle someone. I suppose there are some individuals that can not separate reality from video games and perhaps those persons should not be playing video games or watching television in the first place as they probably have some psychological issues that need to be ironed out. I have read lots of studies on violence, video games, and kids and there is a lot of conflicting evidence and a vast array of findings. I suppose that violence in movies and video games could desensitize a person, but personally I have been watching violent movies and playing violent games since I was younger than I should have been and I have never done anything violent to harm another person or even an animal. I still don't like watching rape scenes and gory murder scenes. I haven't turned into a drone that just watches and has no emotional response. I suppose some people might get to that point, but not everyone, conditioning or not.
