ENGLISH DEBATE ON SOCIAL TOPICコミュのVideo games to blame for violence?

After watching the documentary 'Bowling for Columbine' by Michael Moore, I have come to believe that violence is not the only thing to be blamed.

I'm sure that a lot of kids at a young age start playing these games (eg. CS and Halo) and get into the whole idea of killing the opponents off with vivid violent image and increase their knowledge on available weapons. And this familiarizes the kids with violence and makes it an every day action. However, it's impossible to pin point video games as the sole reason for these tragic events.

In the end, it is the parental responsibility to ensure that their own kids stay well-balanced, as Hiroki mentioned.

ahh, this topic. i say, if it weren't for video game (violence) we'd be seeing worse in today's society.

just think, where else can you smash cars into buildings, shoot other humans in the face and beat up hookers? these types of games are just doing their job: to entertain and provide us with a small escape from reality. video games allow us to re-create and do the otherwise impossible in the real world. it's just a visual experience.

i can't imagine myself now growing up without video games. sure they kept me indoors too much but it did keep me out of trouble. and my parents always knew where i was.

oh, and to asha:

don't believe michael moore's videos too much. while he does have some valid points, he, like the government and other powers of society, (try to) manipulate the general populace. all he does is interview someone or tape a video then edit and butcher it to pieces so much that the original point is no longer valid.

i think the only way to believe is to take in as many point of views as you can and then decide for yourself.

I don't know that I have alot to add on the issue of whether video games are only to blame, I agree with whats been said. however, I do want to explore an idea asked in the original post, on whether or not kids raised on video games have trouble telling the difference between reality and video games. Well, having played games such as FFXI and knowing people who can play these games for 16 hours straight with no rest (yes, I know someone whose talked about doing this, and more), I wonder . . . when the game has become your life, whose to say whats real? If your only experiances are within a game, if your that deep in it, than really, subjectively, doesn't the line between the two "realities" blur? I'm curious about this, and I apologize if its a little off the main point, but I think about this alot when I talk to this sort of person... like, also, there's this philosophy of a sort, cyberpunk, in which technology has caused people to have the sort of attitdue presented in this Bruce Sterling quote:

"Anything that can be done to a rat can be done to a human being. We can do just about anything you can imagine to rats. And closing your eyes and refusing to think about this won't make it go away. That is cyberpunk."

To further explain what I mean by posting this quote: when you live your life in a game, you become very aware that you're being subjected to the rules of the game, like a rat, but eventually, you live with them. after you sign off, you start to wonder . . . 'am I still being affected by a set of rules?' and in such a way I think videogames have fueled cyberpunk, a sort of new nihilism . . . and maybe, to tie it back to the main point of the whole thread, when people are living under such an "oppresive" philosophy, their actions are being affected I'm sure (although, neccesarily good or bad is hard to say . . . nihilism has fueled anarchists of the past yes, but also dada so . . .)

hmmm, i worry that this is a mess of a post, but its not really a point so much as an idea i wanted to throw out there.

★little dragon
i was afraid someone would point that out when i mentioned michael moore. i do wish that we could hear more from the government side, but they tend to keep a lot of things covered, and for good reasons too i think.

on a different note, there was a guy at my school last year who died of malnutirition because he played the sims for weeks in his house. jesus...

well, i think if someone brings up michael moore, someone else will eventually bring up that point ;)

my friend on the other side of this room plays world of warcraft almost every minute of his waking hour. the only way we can pry him off that garbage game is to get friends over and do something. or go out and get something to eat.

i have been addicted to some games, yes, but i will never let them enter the point of my own life-endangerment. or anyone around me. i guess its just a matter of self-control or willpower. video game related deaths are a mere percentage compared to the number of gamers in the world. thank god to that. compare that to alcohol or gambling, etc.

hiroki,
in north america we also have game ratings (see them @ http://www.esrb.org/esrbratings_guide.asp) and the 18+ games (mature and AO) are suppose to be only sold if you show ID.

you make a good point with halo and cs and ffxi but should a 12 yr old child try to re-enact something from cs and get himself killed or a 28 yr old man dying from malnutrition because he plays ffxi for 20hrs a day: which is worse? yes, they are both violence. one to his own body and/or others and the other to just his body.

we all say true things here but everyone's mind is different therefore we will all act differently. its up to ourselves whether the game will control us or not.

i don't play video games much but i'm violent enough.
so i don't think video games will make me worse.
just ask my husband, he has a black eye from me.
i'm pregnant and i eat a lot of vegetables.

Wow, didn't quite expect so many comments so quickly, but thanks for all who've contributed so far. A lot of good points, and hopefully more to come from others from the community.

>there was a guy at my school last year who died of malnutirition because he played the sims for weeks in his house

Just found this really interesting. Reminds me of the Metallica song "Sad but True", lol. Oh well, it's just natural selection in progress.

I've played FFXI and it's definitely addicting, but I think for anyone "normal" there's a clear distinction between reality and the video game mainly because most people have lives outside of their homes. School, work, friends, these (I think) give people a little bit of exposure every day to the real world. I think the major problem occurs when you have people who are unemployed, live with their parents and unemployed, or maybe have a really long break like summer vacation that this might really become a problem. Again, I speak for normal case people with a life.

Hiroki brought up a really good point at the beginning how people are naturally very competitive, and when video games become a "win or lose" competition based passtime, kids do get a little riled up. Hell, I find myself getting a bit intense sometimes too. I think the kind of games harefumam was talking about are the games like Street Fighter or Smash Brothers, but the reality of the fact is that these are fun games, not brutal and sadistic games. I remember when I was little my friends and I used to play Kamen Rider or Ultraman games, where someone would be the good guy and some would be the monsters and we'd play fight. It seems to me that this is the same sort of deal, just in a digital format. Yeah, emotions run high, but in the end it's all just a good time.

As for the Biohazard type games, I think the age appropriateness does have to be addressed. I think the rated M deal they have in the States is good, mainly because it leaves it up to the parents to judge if their children are mature enough, and whether the parents themselves are able to take the responsibility of putting the game into its proper context. I personally see nothing really wrong with these games, mainly because despite the fact that it does involve a lot of blood and killing on both sides, the enemy is a bunch of non-human monsters. With the exception of a few bad dreams there should't be any distortion of reality. Now, this is mainly coming from watching my youngest brother (who was probably around 10 when Bio came out) and his friends play these very violent games for hours. Hey, it's just fun, and like Little Dragon pointed out, this is the place and time to vent all of the frustration and take it out on something that's gonna result in no overall harm being done.
Also, it seems like the bigger problem isn't necessarily video game violence, but rather that it's too easy for incompetend people to get ahold of weapon like guns. I'm sure that some of you probably played "cops and robbers" or some other equivalnet when you were younger, but we never used real guns, right? We used toy guns or immaginary finger pistols. Why? Probably cause we had no idea where the guns were in the house, if there were even guns in the house. Rather than pointing the finger at a few lines of computer code it seems like those politicians should be trying to enforce tighter gun regulation instead.

thanks hiroki.

eating vegetable is just my hobbie.
it's got nothing to do with this topic.

wow. i hope that day never comes. "true" VR like that shouldn't exist. imagine the addiction. imagine the hackers hacking their way into your brain...literally.

no thanks.

Yeah, I read about the mouse experiment a while back on the New York Times, and it's interesting how people are actually capable of remote controlling lab mice. But as for video games I think for the most part there won't ever really be any "virtual experience" through the use of probes and impulses directly to the brain due to the fact that it's far too sensitive to be doing in very stimulating and fast paced games. I think the direction they'd be more likely to go is to build gear that will make it seem like you're feeling the things in the environment. They actually have VR gloves that have little pressure pads and push up against your fingers when you "touch" something in the VR world, so as to make it seem like you're touching it when in reality the glove's touching you. So there are other ways around the virtual experience rather than going straight to the brain, seeing how easy it is to foold the brain into thinking what we want it to think.

The remote controlled GI is an interesting issue, and it wouldn't amaze me if some sicko was thinking of that right now. But I'm not sure if one person could really control another in a manner that's more effective than allowing the soldier to control his/her own body. So although it's an interesting point, I don't think anyone will be remote controlling humans in combat. But, there is the possibility that they could remote control certain parts of the brain (like adrenal glands to pump people up for battle). Someone might be able to click a button so that soldiers become high on their natural hormones, making them less afraid to go into combat (almost like a remot controlled berserker).

ummm . . . about the remote control adrenal glands... the american army has a long tradition of issuing its soldiers mind altering drugs. Special K, i've heard, was developed for combat usage. I know during WWI cocaine inhalers were issued to all fighter pilots. Marijuana was issued in vietnam (not like it had to be...) amphetimines have been used on front line troops... what i mean is, we don't need to have someone else click a button, just give the soldiers syringes.

back to the point though, hiroki kinda summed up what i meant... when you start to think in this way- even now, are you really sure you exist in reality? it was hard enough to believe we existed before computers, and this sort of control idea hiroki talked about can cause the doubt that tears down the decartisian comfort we might have, and make people feel the desperation of nonexistance. so in that way, video games can lead to not being able to tell between reality and fiction, to feeling hopelessness, and maybe to violence?

thats going out on a limb of sorts (you have to believe nihilism is violent, for instance), but i wanted to try and tie it all back together...

What yeah mentioned about the long history of the US military using drugs is true, but in all reality those don't enhance one's ability to fight, but the side effects would inhibit judgment as well as coordination. Like i think the weed was used primarily for medical purposes (not like anyone used it for that though). They don't trigger the fight or flight, which would be what they'd really want to trigger.

And back to the point for me as well. I'm not quite sure if the evolution of video games is taking place at such a fast pace as to have the blurring of reality and video game be a true problem. True, video games are probably one of the fastest developing form of entertainment, but it isn't as if we've suddenly skipped straight to perfect VR where we're inside the game. We still have intermediate devices that prevent us from getting the entire real-feeling experience, like controller pads, joy sticks, and keyboards. You definitely will get your pulse to go up when playing a game like BioHazard, but it's still only your fingers doing all of the moving. You're not running for your life, shooting a realistic gun replica, or feeling anything that the character would be feeling (thank god).
You do actually get a dose of natural adrenaline as a result of playing video games, which some people attribute to violence and the inability to tell the difference between right and wrong. But the fact is that you get the exact same kind and amount of the adrenaline when you're playing sports or other mind and body stimulating activities, and yet you don't see martial artists or boxers punching and kicking everyone they see in the street.
I don't really think it's even a maturity issue, but more of a whether you simply lie within the spectrum of noramality or not. People with severe psychological issues will probably be the ones that commit violent crimes which are then attributed to video games, and the games just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. VR is not so close to reality that it could ever be blurred without something going wrong in the neural machinery itself. It is still possible to end up spending all of your time online chatting and playing with people who are your virtual friends, and not your friends in real life, but that doesn't mean you actually believe that FFXI's Vanadiel is a real place.
It seems like my argument here is a bit blunt, but it seems to me that, much like how there are stupid and ugly kids (yes, some kids are not "special" and some are very funky looking, I'm sorry), there are going to be messed up people in this world. If you gave a young Ted Bundy a video game that reflected happiness and spreading joy (*gag*), he probably would have still ended up being a serial killer. Main reason: he wasn't stupid, he was messed up, and messed up people are the ones who are able to commit gruesome crimes withouta a hint of guilt. Stupid people on the other hand, well, they're mainly just annoying, but the kinds of crimes they commit (I don't think at least) fall under the kinds of "I couldn't tell the difference between the game and reality" crimes.