Sunday, March 11, 2012
Violence and Games
In class, the idea of violent actions and video games was briefly mentioned. It is a common idea that violent games, television and movies influence the people, usually youth, watching to be violent as well. However it truly depends on the age and mind set of the person playing or watching. If a person is mature enough they should be able to realize that the violence they act out in a game is purely fictional, that it is unacceptable in real life. That is piratically why violent games are so popular, because they allow consumers to do what is other wise forbidden in society. So if a player or viewer can comprehend that what they are seeing is purely fictional it should not lead to any excess of violence. Instead violent games have been said to act as a sort of therapy for some. When someone finds themselves in frustrating circumstances they can go home and take their anger out on a game instead of on another person.
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I must confess that it is slightly annoying when people associate all video-games with desensitization. There are many video games which are so obviously disconnected from reality. I don't think that my killing of a peahat http://images.wikia.com/zelda/images/6/62/Peahat_(Ocarina_of_Time).png from Legend of Zelda results in my being desensitized to some moral wrong; I likely will not mistake a peahat for a human being.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, there are some games which sort of push the envelope. Games are becoming increasingly more realistic. Some games, first person shooters, for instance, are becoming very realistic. The Unites States army actually uses the likes of Call of Duty and Modern Warfare to desensitize people to killing. Of course, having signed up for the army, these people are already in the mindset of actually killing people for a living so there isn't really a way to tell how greatly the video game affects them.