by Beaucipher

Created on: October 28, 2009

Do violent video games promote real life violence? Easy answer, NO!

As an avid video gamer myself and father of a 1 year old, I can understand a parent's concern about this topic. The debate will never reach a conclusion though because everyone has an opinion, with many of those opinions being uninformed. Therein lies the problem. There have been many cases of teen violence which have immediately been attributed to video games, one of the most infamous games being the Grand Theft Auto series. First of all yes this is a violent game, no doubt about it and yes unguided children or teens who may play this game could get very bad ideas from it. That is why they have ratings, I would never allow my son to play this type of game, until he is old enough to know the difference between right and wrong, between video games and reality. It is our job as a parents to teach our children these differences, and it is also our job as a parent to monitor what our children are doing. Video games are not meant to be baby sitters, no more than television is and by monitoring what they watch and play or just plain being involved in what they are doing can eliminate many of the problems and dangers our children face. I personally feel that blaming video games, movies or even books for anyone's misdoings is just a way to pass the blame, to make ourselves feel like it's not our fault. One thing to remember though. Even though they may not have learned it from you, they should have learned not to do it first. We can't shield our children from every bad or scary thing in the world, but we can prepare them so they know what to do if they should ever be in a bad situation.

Now, from an adult perspective. Anyone who blames their misdeeds on video games has serious issues to begin with. To any normal person, including my self video games are an outlet not an inspiration. If someone gets cut off in traffic I would rather them go home and start up grand theft auto and pull someone out of their car in the video game and beat them to death than to do it in real life. Video games can be very therapeutic if they are taken in the right context. Besides that, if we stop making violent video games, movies will be next to blame, then books, then storytelling or sports because they promote competition which can lead to violence and so on and so forth.. Before you know it we'll all be sitting in our houses doing nothing all day. Honestly, that just doesn't sound ideal to me.

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