Are video games corrupting kids?

[Knightwhosaysni]

This is a topic I'm interested in, and I'm doing a school assignment on this topic. I want to get people's views from different parts of the community and their reasoning behind their opinions.

So the question I pose you today, do you think that Kids (~10-14 year olds) should be playing video games, especially ones with violence and offensive language? Do you agree or think people have a point when they say that violence is a leading cause or factor in violent attacks (for example; The RUssian airport shootings last year or the Columbine Massacre.)? Why do you think this?

It's my opinion that anyone under the age of ten should not be playing video games with violence and even then it should be minimal stuff (like Age of Empires). But I do not think that video games cause violence and think it's an easy place to push blame to when there is a violent attack and the attacker plays video games or has an interest in them.
However, I also think that teenagers should be given the opportunity to play these games before their time, before a straight "No." from their parents is given as an answer. Parents should do research on the game that their child wants, if they believe their kid mature enough to handle it and don;t think that the kid will go shoot up the neighbourhood.
With the inconsistencies of the rating boards and such today, I think that if little Billy requests x game from his parents (and they believe their child to be mature enough to handle gamesa) that they should take responsibility and research the game before outright refusing because it might be rated R18 or straight up giving into their demands.

Sorry for the wall of text and I hope I'm making sense here

Share your thoughts

 

[Acebopata]

I feel that many games are corrupting, not only kids, but people from all ages and walks form life.

I actually like to study warfare as a hobby. Ironicly, I dislike warfare in the real world, but I know that this infomation could be useful some day. And some video games can be good tools in this kinda study. But unfortiuntly, most all war games these days tend to glorify war rather simulated it. This can cause people to think that war is some enjoyable ocupation when it is something you do not want to go in to unless absolutly nessacery.

Now I do support our armed forces, and I support war only when it's nessacery, like WWII, The revolutionary war, and such. But I don't like it when we fight for the wrong reasions, or when we fight with a stragady concocted by someone who is not for our nation in the truest sense.

But back to the topic. Many war games do glorify war. And it's not just war games either. Games like Grand Theft Auto have so many bad infulences and ideas that I'm honestly surprised it dosen't have a TH- for 30 years old and up. (TH is a made up rating, but it ilistrates my point.) To be honest, I like the open world system of grand theft auto, I just dislike the hate, and the violence of the game itself.

And then Fable. Fable is a game where you go around as either a hero or a villion, and your character represents your desisions. I use to play this game untill a few weeks ago because I decided all these foul games where not what I wanted in my house. Fable wasn't as bad as Grand Theft Auto, but it had it's problems, never the less.

With all that being said, I'd have to say the potentual to infulence children is deffently there, but more than likely at work as we speak, er... I mean type.

 

[Garyn Dakari]

Corrupting kids? Maybe, but not all, obviously. The kindest person I know is a gamer, and plays violent video games and such.(He's a 22 year old adult)

On the flipside, the most aggressive people I know are also gamers.

Just as an example, I know two Christian people on the internet, one of them is eleven, and the other is fourteen, just a year and a half younger than myself. They are both allowed to watch and play whatever they want, and have played games far worse than I am allowed to. The eleven year old has been allowed to play these games and watch R rated movies all his life, and the fourteen year old has been allowed to since he was six. The younger one is the most aggressive and rudest person I have ever known, and he uses the F word in almost every sentence. The fourteen year old also swears a lot, and talks about sex/violence a lot, but he is generally kinder than the eleven year old.

So yes, I do think that video games can "Corrupt" kids if they play them too early, and/or play the wrong games. I hope that in the case of the two kids I mentioned, it's just a phase of "I'll swear so people will think I'm mature". I try to guide them in what I think is the "Right" direction, but I don't want to be pushy or imposing.

Just so I'm not giving the wrong impression, they are not "Bad" people, they just have many bad tendencies, and think it's totally okay to swear, insult, and have very different ideas of what is acceptable and what is not.

I think it would have done them good to wait before playing M rated games, and watching R rated movies.

 

[rko]

yeah it is a contributing factor but i think it all starts in the household as well. im 22 now but i was raised in a good home with a Christian mother and a father who isn't a Christian but he is a disciplined man and demands peace and love around the house. I watched tons of R rated films and play call of duty and grand theft auto (both m rated games) and in those 22 years, i still confessed Christ as my Saviour and i never wanted to go out do half the things that they do in those games. So i believe that you can't really pin all or even half the blame on the games (keep in mind that i don't condone the content of the games either, not what im saying.) but you must look at the household and whats being allowed and disallowed. if there is a strong Christian presence in the house, then you can best believe some good results are going to show.

 

[Acebopata]

I sold almost 75% of my entire video game collection because the games where either too violent, or too occultic/super-natural for the new standards I inacted in my life. Now they are a few war games left in my cabnit, but I have strict rules for buying new games, such as the follows...

1. All video games must either have no cussing, or cussing at a bare munimun.

2. Any war-games must be relitivly accrate and must be used for testing battle tactices rather than to have fun blowing things us and killing people.

3. No video game can have a required effort of sexuall imorality. (Meaning that the game can have the opiton, but can not require the act to compleat the game. Mostly, this rule is reserve for lifestyle games like the Sims, which can be modded to contain exxcessive secuall imorality.)

4. As a general rule, a video game should be no more violent that a police officer chasing a suspect under normal curcomstances.

5. All video games must reframe from using the Lords name in vain. Also, All video games must avoid bulling and or jabbing of other religens.

6. All video games must avoid excessive attacks on inocent civillians, both required and non-required action to compleate the game.

7. No video game that is baised on an idea is dissallowed, unless the video game is baised on excessivly occultic ideas, or the idea is a personal jab at a belief system.

8. No video game can contain an excessive amount of violence in compairisen to the original concept. (EX, wrestling and boxing games where you can pick ip a spikled bat and hit your opponent.)

9. No game may contain superstars with violent, anit religus, or occultic, theme songs, paint schemes, clothing, tatoos, original sound tracks, and other memoribelia.

10. No game may contain nunidy, questionable clothing, or foul pictures/scenes. (A game can screen out when people are showing, bathing, or using the toilit in life style games only. Again, mostly going back to The Sims.)

But yeah, some of these rules are for a more Christain- style gammer, but many of them can be used by anyone who is concerned about being infulenced negitivly by video games.

 

[Garyn Dakari]

I think what I said could have been worded better. I meant that video games could contribute to "Corruption"(Not that that's the term I'd use, but okay). In and of themselves, they won't corrupt most people, but they could certainly contribute depending on the person.

 

[YoungThinker]

I don't think it's only the games. There are bad infuences in every sort of media in our culture. If I had kids I would research the gameslike you said and then make a decision. What my family considers inappropriate and what the rating boards consider inappropriate are two different things. Did you know that a Looney Tunes game was rated 13+ for violence and alcohol?Looney Tunes is obviously the better option when it comes to some E-rated games. I’d check out each game myself.

As for the violence, I think both books, television, andmovies are a major part of it. It wouldn’t be fair to place all the blame onvideo games. That being said, violent videos games should be avoided byeveryone, especially the children.

 

[Acebopata]

I don't think it's only the games. There are bad infuences in every sort of media in our culture. If I had kids I would research the gameslike you said and then make a decision. What my family considers inappropriate and what the rating boards consider inappropriate are two different things. Did you know that a Looney Tunes game was rated 13+ for violence and alcohol?Looney Tunes is obviously the better option when it comes to some E-rated games. I’d check out each game myself.

As for the violence, I think both books, television, andmovies are a major part of it. It wouldn’t be fair to place all the blame onvideo games. That being said, violent videos games should be avoided byeveryone, especially the children.

Indeed, and thy shalt not forget tine music of hatred and thy music of morality.

 

[Destructus86]

Depends on the age...If I had a kid, I wouldn't let them play video games until they were smart enough to know the difference between games and reality. So, probably in their teens.

However, many of the stories we see online about a kid killing his parents over a video game isn't because of the video game. It's because the child had previous mental issues that needed to be addressed but were ignored by said parents.

So, I would need to take that into account as well. Other than that, it's fine. Video games don't corrupt. I've played video games almost all my life (i'm 33 now) and i'm not morally corrupted. Heck, I can't even watch the evening news because real life violence bothers me so much. but I can play a rated M game no problem. Why? Because I know it's not real.

 

[Anthiena]

This is a toughie. On one hand, I think games are great-they can be a real conversation starter. A kid was interviewed on things he was on Grand Theft Auto, but not what he thought about it, which I think is intellectually dishonest. He was asked later by someone else what he thought about what he saw, if he thought it was acceptable and why he played it.

Just like anything else, games can be tasteless, meaningful, artistic, commercial to the core, fun, boring and everything in between. Just like any other medium. Take Pokemon for example: on the one hand, its people who catch and battle unusual creatures, one against the other. On the other hand, it has a high-school reading level. The average Pokemon game player may range from adults to children in Middle School.

Another example for old school is Metroid: it has no story to speak of really: it's a game about a bounty hunter named Samus Aran who has to go through and defeat space pirates and finds inhuman aliens. The original manual refers to Samus as a man, but at the end of the game (which is immense for an NES game and equal part explorer and platformer as shooter), you find out that Samus is a girl. There is nothing to indicate beforehand that it's a woman you are playing.

Legend of Zelda is a game series that usually has a silent protagonist who must traverse different dungeons and bring together trinkets to find and rescue his land (and the princess Zelda). Its most notable entry, Ocarina of Time and Mask of Majora encourage acts of kindness and discourage acts of cruelty. If one abuses the chickens, they will start attacking you and won't stop until you leave the area or die.

fl0w and fl0wer are games devoid of plot and if one chooses, violence. It goes as fast as you want it to go.

Final Fantasy VI details the story of how long-gone magic returns to the world and how hubris wrecks it. It also deals with such very grown up themes as grief, suicide, teen pregnancy, war, forgiveness, genocide and the value of relationships of all kinds in a very respectful way.

There is a new phenomenon among gamers: something called a pacifist run. What it means is that the player goes through a game without killing anything at all. Another game shows what might happen when a nuclear weapon goes off-your usual mission-based senario becomes survive and aid and comfort the injured and dying.

A recent game, Catherine gives the player (and the lead character) choices:are they ready to commit? Do they want an "exciting" life? Or freedom?

Games such as Fable also introduce morality scales-good deeds and bad deeds are measured appropriately.

 

[soaren]

I'm 21. Been playing video games since I was 8.

In an ideal situation, I don't think video games would have much of an effect on morality of an individual.

I think the biggest factor was that the Bible was taken out of schools... That really butchered the country so to speak... Was basically taken out in the mid 60's... Crime started to skyrocket in the late 60s...

Generally, people who are set over the edge by video games were already lost if you know what I mean.

I play some pretty violent games, and I have no desire to harm anyone.

 

[Dillion]

You can't blame the video games. That is a weak excuse. I LOVE video games. All video games contain some violence even the ones aimed at kids like Mario. Don't you have to beat up Bowser to win? ;)

 

[Grazer]

You can't blame the video games. That is a weak excuse. I LOVE video games. All video games contain some violence even the ones aimed at kids like Mario. Don't you have to beat up Bowser to win? ;)

Yeah you do, took me hours lol

I play video games though my collection is limited;

Gears of War
Gears of War 2
Gears of War 3
Halo
Halo 3
Halo Reach
Halo 4 - on order

My fiance doesn't like them because of the violence though I know that what I do in the video game I can't do in real life and don't try - it's called common sense. All these games having age ratings but its the parents who choose to ignore them by buying their kids these games. The level of exposure to sexual material is more a concern I think.

 

[ColdBlooded]

No, they don't. Unless your child is an idiot and was raised incompetently, he/she should know that stealing cars and attempting vehicular manslaughter is bad and only in games is that permissible. I grew up playing whatever, whenever. I owned my first Grand Theft Auto at the age of 14 and beat that game many a time. Never did I steal a car and and engage in gunfights, because I had the sense to differentiate fantasy and reality.