Lethal recreations: computer games afecting teenage brains?

Sure it does.

Realising this has been quite a while ago, I will still like to make a comment.

I am 15 years old and have been playing computer games all my life, when I feel like it.

When I first played the PC, I played my first ever explicit violence game and that was Duke Nukem 3D, when it just came out.

I played it, and I cannot remember myself changing after that, for instance saying those wacky swearing quotes that were in the game, and I have never had the feeling to claim a pistol and start rampaging around looking for police officer mutated pigs, with my deformed warped mind after playing the game.

I remember playing Pacman, Pacman in itself has a kind of violence in it... you control something that goes around chomping the hell out of everything, and when you eat a powerup you get to chase those weird pixelated ghosts and try to eat them!
I have never heard of any kids wandering around looking for something to eat that will make them strong only to bite someone for attemping to score 1000 points, or whatever.

I also played the Leisure Suit Larry Series when I was young, which contained you controlling a man with a big head who uses lame and corny phrases to try and pull woman and have sex with them.

I DO NOT find myself, walking around with breath spray, hammer, looking for graffiti on toilet walls in a pub to get through a secret doorway which leads to a pimp (LSL 1), attempting to have sex with a woman.

After all that banter, I'm coming to the point:

Video/PC Games DO NOT warp kids minds into thinking their Rambo or Mr. Sexy, or whoever. The only kids that will fall to prone to violence and other *qualities* in games will be the ones who already have some kind of mental disablement already.

CASE CLOSED.

anyoneelse, got something to add?

i agree with micropanic. there's no way video games affect kid's minds, there's a definite difference between the virtual and real. even in the most realistic games, kids know that it isn't real life. the media on television is different because it involves real people, which probably affects kids more than games. the future problem is as games get more complex with graphics, the line between what is virtual and not will diminish. Gen Xers and beyond usually can tell if some effect is fake from just the brightness/glare of whatever is being manipulated.

i'm 16, and the majority of the games i play are RPG/fighting/shooting games (1st person). i think there's a level of reality to the games that lets kids take their stresses out. maybe that's a factor in a dwindling amount of military volunteers--kids take their rage out online. i believe counter-strike has taken away part of the military's future, which i'm fine with (i'm anit-war).

i'd like to know if violent games have a correlation with intelligence. it seems that the majority of "average" IQ-ed people play sports games, while those with an higher IQ play RPGs/Strategy and games that involve a rigid amount of self-organization (AOE, C&C, FF series) instead of having a bunch of computers bots catch your football/bball/whatever.

i think games should be more violent
I think the fact games are more violent and people actually scream and die is a good thing. I think it would be much more dangerous for children to play games that dont accurately refelect the real world. For example I think it is wrong that on some games if you kill someone they vanish or just fade away. Take soldier of fortune, excellent game, when you shoot someone their legs will blow off and they will scream in agony this does not desensitise you to violence it makes it more real.

Take that ogrish website for example the content you can view on there is real, horrible, gut churning violence. Viewing this content does not make you in anyway, feel the need to replicate it.

The media will always try and find something to blame the actions of disturbed children on, wether it be tenage mutant ninja turtles, or that killer dool chucky or computer games.

The fact is the seed for evil always has to be there and computer games in no way make children into killers they may simply affect the way in which they choose to commit their crime.

Re: i think games should be more violent


The actual fact is that the inrease of violence in games is catering to an audience that wants to see more violence. If it weren't for the fact, nobody would be buying them.

People aren't becoming more violent because of the videogames. The videogames are becoming more violent because of the people's tastes.

When parents cite videogames as a source of violence that influence behaviour, why is it, I wonder, that they never look towards the ones that do not?

If videogames really do influence our behaviour, people who play SimCity would want to become Mayors, people who play Luigi's Mansion (by Nintendo) would suddenly get desires to vacuum the house, people who play Super Mario Sunshine (also by Nintendo) would suddenly start going out and washing graffiti off walls and cleaning up toxic spills.

(Those two games by Nintendo are suspiciously strange. It makes me wonder whether Nintendo is trying to brainwash children into becoming upstanding citizens who clean their houses and abhor graffiti. Oh my! The horror!).

To paraphrase someone from the NRA (and in doing so, replace the word gun with videogames)... Videogames do not kill people. People kill people.

If people really think that there are too many violent videogames in the world, perhaps they should do as one Christian group did and set up a game company that makes non-violent games?

I think after the stresses of life teenagers get, exams, parents etc they just want to get home and blast away terrorists with their M16s and grenades. The only game I have heard of which is quite violentlly explict is Manhunt but I still dont think an animated man killing people will make them want to run out and hack up people with chainsaws. The line between Virtuality and Reality is still quite big and isnt gone...yet.

I'm doing a research paper on this right now, believe it or not.

One of you experts out there...what do you think?

Believe me, I would read through everything if I had time, but this damn thing is due tomorrow.

What positive effects do video games have on the youth?
And what about negative?
What should parents do about this dilemma?

Do you think the so called negative effects really do exist, or is it all in the way the children was raised, treated, etc?

Actually, I did a similar research paper back in high school.
(Off the top of my head)
Pros: Teaches hand-eye coordination
Teaches problem solving
Increases intelligence

Cons: May raise kids to become violent like their favorite character
and other nonsense like that...

Parents shouldn't really worry about it. Their kids will grow up the way their parents treat them, not the way their video games do.

That's my 2 cents. I hope it helps out, except I'm probably way late on this. lol