Archive for July 24th, 2007
To kill or not to kill?
This article annoys me. Not so much just this article, but the whole idea of ‘virtual effects what really happens’. In other words, violent media breeds violence. This is such a load of horse shit. Let’s look at the bare-bone facts first:
According to this source the game Doom (known as one of the first truly ‘violent’ video games) had been downloaded by over 10 million people under under 2 years. Given that it has been out since 1994, it can be easily assumed that the number as increased substantially.
That being said , there have not been 10 million homicides related to that game. In fact, according to a quick Google search of statistics, it seems that if there were 10 million homicides it would require multiple countries to combine their homicide rates. Then multiply it by one hundred. A few times. Stats
If it were really true that video games and movies cause people to kill, one would think that the stats would be quite a bit higher. It’s foolish to say that these things are the sole cause and blame for somebody’s behavior, It is as though saying that people only eat pizza because it was the favorite food of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The media may be an aiding factor at the very least, but surely not the cause. Start finding a different link, maybe hair color. I think that would be a better way to go: ban all brown hair dye. There is a high percent of people with brown hair that go nuts and kill people than there is linked it violent video games.
A normal, healthy teenager doesn’t get off the couch after killing zombies and think “Wow, I wonder if my teacher’s head explodes like that”. It would be nice if the media would start looking up facts before they start saying that video games are causing school shootings. If I have to listen to one more ‘and the young man was a fan of the video game…’ when they’re talking about some sick fuck who mowed down cheerleaders I’m going to go kill somebody.
