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"Are Games Dangerous For Todays Youth?"

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Sun 08/09/02 at 20:05
Regular
Posts: 787
I personally do not believe that video games are in the slightest bit dangerous for todays youth. How can computer games possibly be dangerous?

Ok, children are very impressionable. Children tend to take after someone near to them such as parents or an elder sibling and copy what they do and say. I know that video games have a big impression on children -I was one once- but I cannot bring myself to believe that games can have a harmful effect on the youth of today.

I feel that in todayís modern culture it is quite harmful to a child if he/she does NOT possess a PC or console. This is because they will be left out of the many conversations that revolve around video games. Also the children will be missing out sorely on a great way to spend their leisure time. Also, I wonder if these people who talk about the horrors of video gaming have ever really sat down and watched a child play a video game and seen first hand the pleasure that is readily available from these games.

I myself was raised in the computer game era from an early age, my first computer being a Spectrum. As a child I took part in horrendous activities such as murder, joy riding, GBH and various other unwholesome activities-In the games! Games such as the Resi-evil series, Driver and GTA are the genre of games that people think will harm todays youth. Now these games are by their very natural, criminal and some people seem to think that by doing things as a fictional character in a video game, children will imitate this in real life. Right so kids do exactly the same things as they do in video games, here are a few possible examples:

James walks out of his house after playing Quake 3 with a rocket launcher in search of deformed aliens so that he can blast them into multiple lumps of gore.

Bill sees a square metal shaped object and remembers from his video game experience (playing on Driver 2) that he must steal the car and kidnap someone before handing him over to a very scary man.

Charlie attempts to become a secret agent by infiltrating the local Comet store and snapping the guards neckís in two before putting on his stealth suit and sneaking past the surveillance cameraís. (No introduction necessary for this one!)

Now please tell me that you do not believe that this sort of thing happens.

Also if video games like this have a dangerous affect on children then what about some more benign kids games such as Frogger and Pokemon. A few more possible scenarios needed I think:

Lucy wonders out into the street and spots a frog. She then decides to pretend to be a frog whilst crossing the M1 motorway.

Jack is on a nature hike when he encounters a badger and picks up some rocks (poke balls I think?) and throws them at the now enraged badger.

So if these examples are taken literally I have a point to make. In Driver 2 when you are caught by the police you are arrested teaching kids the pitfalls of crime. The brilliant MGS also shows children that if you become a secret agent when you are shot you die, horribly. Surely Frogger shows children that if they get run over by a lorry they will miraculously end up on the side of the road totally unhurt with two more lives. Now which game is more harmful to children? Following on from this logic, the people who believe that video games are harmful to children must want an outright ban on all video games! Strange or what.

If a child cannot deal with the simple frustration of a computer game without becoming abusive or violent then how on earth are they going to deal with real life events that come up like getting told off by a teacher or not being able to do a maths problem that everyone else can do. If it is looked at in this way then computer games can teach a very important lesson to children about how to deal with this frustration calmly by walking away.

Also a very important plus of video gaming is the usual release from stress that a good blast on an entertaining game can bring. If a child has not played on games all their life then by the time they are doing their GCSEs they will have to find other ways of stress relief, none of which could be as effective as taking your anger out on a fictional human on Tekken or another such game. Another benefit of gaming that tends to be overlooked is the ability of games to curb boredom in a child.

The games industry only exists for one reason-we love playing games. Games are made to be as entertaining and engrossing as possible so that they can be used as a form of escapism. Video games are played in a different world to our real one. Every time someone turns on a console/PC then they are transported to another world where they can do things that are just not possible in real life like saving the world, winning the F1 world championship or being a God and these experiences are great. However when the console is turned off this world vanishes as you return to reality and become a normal person again. How can they be used as an excuse for violent behaviour and be blamed for disturbing today's youth when the youth are exposed to murder stories every day on the news. Maybe we should abolish the news as it may influence young people to become a race of twisted murderers.
Sun 08/09/02 at 20:05
Posts: 0
I personally do not believe that video games are in the slightest bit dangerous for todays youth. How can computer games possibly be dangerous?

Ok, children are very impressionable. Children tend to take after someone near to them such as parents or an elder sibling and copy what they do and say. I know that video games have a big impression on children -I was one once- but I cannot bring myself to believe that games can have a harmful effect on the youth of today.

I feel that in todayís modern culture it is quite harmful to a child if he/she does NOT possess a PC or console. This is because they will be left out of the many conversations that revolve around video games. Also the children will be missing out sorely on a great way to spend their leisure time. Also, I wonder if these people who talk about the horrors of video gaming have ever really sat down and watched a child play a video game and seen first hand the pleasure that is readily available from these games.

I myself was raised in the computer game era from an early age, my first computer being a Spectrum. As a child I took part in horrendous activities such as murder, joy riding, GBH and various other unwholesome activities-In the games! Games such as the Resi-evil series, Driver and GTA are the genre of games that people think will harm todays youth. Now these games are by their very natural, criminal and some people seem to think that by doing things as a fictional character in a video game, children will imitate this in real life. Right so kids do exactly the same things as they do in video games, here are a few possible examples:

James walks out of his house after playing Quake 3 with a rocket launcher in search of deformed aliens so that he can blast them into multiple lumps of gore.

Bill sees a square metal shaped object and remembers from his video game experience (playing on Driver 2) that he must steal the car and kidnap someone before handing him over to a very scary man.

Charlie attempts to become a secret agent by infiltrating the local Comet store and snapping the guards neckís in two before putting on his stealth suit and sneaking past the surveillance cameraís. (No introduction necessary for this one!)

Now please tell me that you do not believe that this sort of thing happens.

Also if video games like this have a dangerous affect on children then what about some more benign kids games such as Frogger and Pokemon. A few more possible scenarios needed I think:

Lucy wonders out into the street and spots a frog. She then decides to pretend to be a frog whilst crossing the M1 motorway.

Jack is on a nature hike when he encounters a badger and picks up some rocks (poke balls I think?) and throws them at the now enraged badger.

So if these examples are taken literally I have a point to make. In Driver 2 when you are caught by the police you are arrested teaching kids the pitfalls of crime. The brilliant MGS also shows children that if you become a secret agent when you are shot you die, horribly. Surely Frogger shows children that if they get run over by a lorry they will miraculously end up on the side of the road totally unhurt with two more lives. Now which game is more harmful to children? Following on from this logic, the people who believe that video games are harmful to children must want an outright ban on all video games! Strange or what.

If a child cannot deal with the simple frustration of a computer game without becoming abusive or violent then how on earth are they going to deal with real life events that come up like getting told off by a teacher or not being able to do a maths problem that everyone else can do. If it is looked at in this way then computer games can teach a very important lesson to children about how to deal with this frustration calmly by walking away.

Also a very important plus of video gaming is the usual release from stress that a good blast on an entertaining game can bring. If a child has not played on games all their life then by the time they are doing their GCSEs they will have to find other ways of stress relief, none of which could be as effective as taking your anger out on a fictional human on Tekken or another such game. Another benefit of gaming that tends to be overlooked is the ability of games to curb boredom in a child.

The games industry only exists for one reason-we love playing games. Games are made to be as entertaining and engrossing as possible so that they can be used as a form of escapism. Video games are played in a different world to our real one. Every time someone turns on a console/PC then they are transported to another world where they can do things that are just not possible in real life like saving the world, winning the F1 world championship or being a God and these experiences are great. However when the console is turned off this world vanishes as you return to reality and become a normal person again. How can they be used as an excuse for violent behaviour and be blamed for disturbing today's youth when the youth are exposed to murder stories every day on the news. Maybe we should abolish the news as it may influence young people to become a race of twisted murderers.
Sun 08/09/02 at 20:38
Regular
"i am fubby"
Posts: 596
one word...no
Mon 09/09/02 at 15:57
Posts: 0
Dark Elf wrote:
> one word...no

Why do you say that?
Mon 09/09/02 at 16:04
Regular
"i am fubby"
Posts: 596
because people today are blaming the games and the goverment can't handle the truth.

our country is just to dangerous for some children to grow up in today, all games do is take real life violence and make it fictional, if they wanted less violence then they should just cut it off at the source. give police more pay to do this because in the long run it would be better for the society, anyway what about movies like die hard, they had to come up with the idea from somewhere

you could ban the news if you ban games because of the violene, instead of kids playing cowboys and indians they will play america vs. the alkieda and all sorts of others.

so no i don't think that games are making children violent beacuse the news is the same and the same with action movies, but they wont stop broadcasting the news or making action movies because it is what the public want.

(this could of made no sense, please tell me if not)
Mon 09/09/02 at 20:08
Regular
"MIIB"
Posts: 6
I'm not sure really if they are dangerous i've never seen anyone running down the street with a Rocket Launcher well not yet anyway. That was a very interesting post by the way.

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