by Andrew Suzanne

Created on: May 10, 2009   Last Updated: May 16, 2009

Pointing Fingers at the Wrong Goat

The term 'video-game' strikes different chords for different people. For many, this pair of words is synonymous with 'expensive toy'. For others, it is a source of enjoyment, a popular past-time. For a small, but growing, group of individuals, it's our age's contribution to the world of art.

To far too many, however, video-games are the words blamed upon when a young man takes thirty-three lives, including his own, at a school shooting. Like any quick-to-rise pop culture, video games are the scapegoat for society's problems. For parents of problematic children, it's easier to point fingers at something the media has already dragged through the mud instead of looking at their own problematic parenting. We pass the buck, shifting blame from ourselves.

It's so easy to shrug off the blame, given the media. Most notably, it's FOX news favorite punching bag; whenever their ratings start to decline they exploit the fear of the insecure parent by attacking video games. FOX hires official-sounding pretty-faces such as Cooper Lawrence to spout unproven numbers and quote unscientific or nonexistent studies. Such is proven by the recent Mass Effect debacle, where Cooper Lawrence was told, moments before she went live, that they were going to warn the public of a dangerous video game, Mass Effect, that threatened to attack young men with explicit sex scenes and violence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0kdm7fg804

Mass Effect has no explicit sex scenes.

FOX goes on to say to say about the sex scene "you get to choose what happens between the two characters...if you know what I mean."

Again. Mass Effect has no explicit sex scenes.

Mass Effect is rated M for Mature by ESRB, a rating on the front of every box that warns parents that the content is not suitable for those under seventeen. In an increasing number of states it is illegal to sell such a game to minors. The only way in many states today for a minor to obtain such a game is with parental consent.

For twenty minutes Cooper Lawrence attacked a representative of the gaming industry using unfounded arguments, quoting unreliable studies, and insulting the gaming population in general. When asked if she had even played the game she was judging so harshly, she laughed and responded "No."

The so called 'numbers' she quotes are from a small study done on a minute sample of college students. The study lacks depth or diversity and is a poor example to use in an argument.

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