Topic: I'm going to go against the grain here

[gpw11]

Video games blamed for teenagers doing stupid shit

Now, I'm not going to say that I agree with this guy's opinion 100%, nor am I going to say that I even really agree with his overall point.  What I am saying is that I think the internet/video game culture is overly sensitive about these kinds of statements and also deals with them  entirely the wrong way. 

If you look at what the guy is saying, he's saying that 15 year olds think they're invincible (a point he uses to get his argument across that they are too young to drive cars if you look at the original article).  Part of this may be because of of video games.  Personally, I think there is a good possibility that something a kid spends thousands of hours doing while in developmental stages may very well have something to do with their outlook on life.  That could mean that you just don't understand how much harder to control a car is at very high speeds or it could mean that you think smashing a chair over someone's head won't seriously hurt them.  You've essentially 'done' these things thousands to millions of times, yet don't actually have any real world data to compute what the actual results of doing them are.

Does this mean that video games are 'making' kids do stupid shit?  Not at all.  What it could mean is that the decision making process of some kids is affected by their exposure to video games (or conditioning if you will), and they MIGHT come to a different conclusion then they otherwise would have.  Then again, the conditioning provided by video games could very well be replaced in these individuals by movies, books, cartoons, bling bling rap music, or whatever.

Needless to say, this doesn't really matter.  Why do people post this on their blogs, post it on digg, or whatever to try and refute it?  All that does is provide more hits for someone typing in 'video games and crime' or whatever into google.  The argument doesn't matter at all.  I don't think you can possibly deny that there are people out there that are extremely fucked up and impressionable .... and 8/10 times thats what these articles are referring to.  Video games aren't being blamed...just like booze isn't being blamed when a drunk driver drives through a red light.  It's the individual that carries the blame, and that's the way our society works.  The lawmakers and the vast majority of the people in these articles know this, so there's no need to get in an uproar about it.  The oversensitivity is counter productive.

And you know what....fucking playstations and x-boxes do make a lot of teens drive stupidly.  So did Dukes of Hazard, but that doesn't make the argument any less valid.

 

[idolminds]

It doesn't help that the guy cant build an argument worth shit.

Have we really reached the point where we can blame literally anything on video games? Could I say that Quake 3 somehow retroactively caused the Holocaust, or that Katamari Damacy was responsible for that hurricane that hit Thailand?

WTF does that have to do with anything? You're just making unrelated shit up.

Sure, it's been scientifically proven that prolonged exposure to Halo raises the likelyhood that one will wear a polo shirt with a "popped" collar or that they would ask their "bros" for help doing a "keg stand",

Ok, kinda funny and could be an interesting point about how the individuals are attracted to the games not that the games created the individual. People obsessed with street racing would be attracted to street racing games, not that people who play street racing games become street racers themselves. He just passes this over.

but until these kiwis show me some proof of their claims, the only thing I'm going to draw from this article is that they need to spend more time with Gran Turismo.

Awesome, mention the series thats realistic with the major exception that the cars receive no damage whatsoever. You know, EXACTLY what is being criticized that these young people get a warped sense of reality?

[Quemaqua]

Fuck that.  I *learned* how to drive with Gran Turismo.  No, seriously.  I'd never driven stick a day in my life and when I first went out to do it I did it perfectly.  It isn't exactly the same thing but it teaches you the fundamentals, and as long as you aren't a complete fucking idiot you should be able to discern the differences between driving a virtual car with a little plastic controller and driving a real car with a wheel.

I dunno'.  I can sort of see what you're saying, but then I sort of... don't at all.  I mean, I've been playing games since I was 5 and I was never a total idiot that couldn't perform basic functions because I thought I was Superman.  The differences between games and reality were obvious to me even at an early age.  So what you're basically saying is yes, there are idiots out there who can't figure that out.  Okay... so like with anything, idiots need to be carefully watched and helped so they don't do something idiotic.  I fail to see how this makes games any different from any other element of life.  Kids do dumb shit, games don't necessarily teach them not to.  Neither does TV.  The only thing in a kid's life that will teach him to not do dumb shit is his parents, and that's the biggest problem in the world today -- we have a bunch of parents who continue to do dumb shit and aren't teaching their kids not to.

I think game culture has every right to be annoyed with all the criticism.  It's just a bunch of idiots trying to pass the buck and get people to ignore the fact that they're getting less intelligent with every passing generation.

[Ghandi]

Alright, first of all, this guy is a retard. His whole argument aside, the fact that his opening paragraph stated that a teenagers death was "all well and good" quite frankly disgusts me.

As for the argument at hand, I pretty much agree with Que. The only point I disagree on (and which is the larger argument) is that video games can't teach teenagers to do stupid shit like this. They can, I do believe. But only the idiots who weren't taught better by their parents. There is this whole debate going on where one person takes the side that the video games are to blame, and the other takes the side that the parents are to blame. I take both sides. I say that, just like the Columbine incident (which always seems to come at the forefront of these discussions) the parents did a bad enough job of raising their kids that they were able to play these games and assume that they were somehow related to real life, to the point that they preformed what they saw in the games in real life. Are the video games to blame? Absolutely not. Are they responsible? To a certain degree. But certainly not with most kids.

[idolminds]

I'm not saying one way or the other, just his argument skills are poor. Personally I think its just a bunch of stupid kids getting into car wrecks, which stupid kids have been doing since the invention of the car. They just now have something to blame it on other than their own stupidity.

I'd like to see teen crash statistics showing crash trends for the USA sorted by year. Then toss in console release dates and see what comes up. Do they rise with the release of the Playstation (probably the first time we could consider racing games "realistic")? How does it compare to NES/SNES era...or even pre-videogame?

Another thing to note is cell phone usage. How many teens have cell phones? Right, all of them. And do you think they don't use them in the car when they drive? They are distracting. My cousin (who is my age) was text messaging while she was driving her car, steering with her knee. I'm sure shes not alone.

[gpw11]

I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying Que and Ghandi (although I probably wasn't very concise).

We're essentially saying the same thing. 

"Okay... so like with anything, idiots need to be carefully watched and helped so they don't do something idiotic.  I fail to see how this makes games any different from any other element of life."

I'm not saying it is different from any other element of life at all.  If anything, it's the exact opposite.  We don't hold alcohol, drugs, or anything else accountable for whatever influence it has in some crimes, but rather blame the individual, and with games it should be no different.  Nevertheless, there are people out there that video gaming influences more than the vast majority.  To point out that you or I are fine, or even better off having for having played games has no weight what so ever.  Some people can do crystal meth once or twice and stop, some can't.  People are different. 

Games are no more to blame for these kids then any other outside influence, but we're products of our environment to some extent and to deny that they're going to have a negative influence on some people doesn't do anyone any favors.  It cheapens the stance of the argument that you don't punish the many because of a few and we hold individuals responsible for their actions.

You could blame the parents, but - like anyother factor involved in what makes some people do things, it's more complicated than that.  I've known kids with parents that are fine, but they turn out as fuck ups.  Chemical imbalance?  Maybe, but it's probably more of a combination with their born disposition reacting to the non-parental influences around them.  Does that mean we blame the influences?  Not at all.  Video games are no more to blame than anything else the kid was exposed to in massive amounts.


Did the kids crash the car because they were stupid?  Probably.  Did video games have anything directly involved in the crime? No, but no one said that.  Is it possible that the kids thought their driving skills were much better than they actually were because they've been pulling out of fish tails, pulling off e-brake turns, and double clutching around corners since they were 6?  Yeah, I'd say it's possible, but it doesn't have any effect on anything.  But then people make issues out of these non stories and completely ignore the most important point...that it doesn't matter...we should hold individuals 100% at fault for their decisions. 

My main point?  That video game 'culture' can jump all over it's own played out bandwagon and argue that video games have no effect whatsoever on people with no data to back it up while the other side argues the opposite with no data to back it up, and all it does is trick people into believing that the argument has any bearing at all.  In other words, all it does is perpetuate the need to blame something other then the individual that fucked up and slowly erode away at the concept of personal responsibility.  It doesn't help anything, especially when it's inherently easier to take the philosophical argument that regardless of the impact of video games, it's the person to blame.  But then in doing so, you wouldn't get to defend your hobby....something people seem to love to do (made apparent by how many people seem to personally hate Uwe Boll because he makes shitty movies from shitty licenses....go figure).

[Cobra951]

If you're stupid, you're going to do stupid shit.  Videogames may inspire the direction your stupidity takes, but they are in no way responsible for the stupidity.

I grew up watching stuff like Bugs Bunny, The Lone Ranger, and The Three Stooges.  I played games like cowboys and indians.  I showered my brother with spring-propelled plastic bullets from a toy gatling gun.  But hitting him in the head with a hammer, or shooting at anyone even with BB guns never crossed my mind.  (We all indulge in perverse fantasies, but those stay in the same dream world where we stash fiction, be it books, movies, TV--and yes, videogames.)

As far as I am concerned, there is no debate here.  Blaming fictional works for evils committed by stupid or evil people is self-serving political drivel with no basis in fact.  But even if, for the sake of argument, I entertained the possibility, the result would be no different.  There is no responsibility on the shoulders of videogame developers for whatever evils they may inspire, anymore than the president of Smith & Wesson is responsible for countless armed robberies and murders.  The whole argument is moot, regardless of anything.

But you're right--this guy does not do us good guys any justice.  An improvement would be for him simply to shut up.

[Pugnate]

I have to agree that video games do dictate behavior in any developing person, and yes adversely at times. But that is why there are laws in place to keep impressionable young people from accessing such stuff.

[Quemaqua]

I don't think anybody has ever said games don't affect you at all (or at least not anybody that isn't stupid).  Most of us just say that if you aren't a crazy fuckwad, you're going to be fine.  Which has more or less been proven true.  People with a propensity toward violence are already going to be violent.  If it wasn't a game they were looking at, it'd be a violent movie, book, stick figure, whatever.

[nickclone]

Give me a break! This has nothing to do with videogames, this type of behavior among kids has been going on for centuries. If its not a car, bicycle horse or a chariot, kids have been doing dumb shit since the dawn of time. All children think they're invincible, thats why the jump off of stuff and always seem to be testing the waters.

[Pugnate]

hehe apparently children were jumping off the roof in attempts to fly after buying superman costumes. They later had to put a warning label. WARNING: THIS WILL NOT ENABLE YOU TO FLY YOU DUMB FUCKS!

[Cobra951]

Glad you said that.  Case in point.  I heard I was going to get a Superman costume as a little kid, and I immediately said "volo!?", which is a kid distortion of "vuelo!?", meaning, "will I fly!?"  Before the laughter or the answer of the adults present, I realized what a stupid question that was.  Yes, I was one of the impressionable morons, for all of about half a second.  Man did I feel dumb that I let the question go straight from my head to my big mouth.

[Pugnate]

That is such a cute story.

[Cobra951]

And as often happens with major humiliations, I remember it very well.   

[Pugnate]

Haha don't we all have them? It is funny how I remember all the embarrassing childhood stuff so vividly!!! A lot of it involved cute girls. 

[Jedi]

but until these kiwis show me some proof of their claims, the only thing I'm going to draw from this article is that they need to spend more time with Gran Turismo.

"Until these kiwis?!" Fuck him it was just one retard somewhere in the Government that not even I have heard of I don’t particularly like how this twat has lumped all us “Kiwis” together like we all believe this is the case.
If anything this looser is just riding on the back of a hot topic just so that he can be noticed, like I said the original article is quoting a politician that no one has heard of before. Here in NZ he’d have said that there would have been a news story about the crash, mentioned this retard Maurice, and that’s it.
Then fuck knuckle Nex jumped on it and has decided all us NZers think this way, what an ass.


PS I wrote the above after reading GPWs and seeing that mentioned Kiwis, so I read the article and the orginal article and posted the above. So if anything I'm outside the running discusion that GPW has started. Its just that article really pissed me off.

[nickclone]

Glad you said that.  Case in point.  I heard I was going to get a Superman costume as a little kid, and I immediately said "volo!?", which is a kid distortion of "vuelo!?", meaning, "will I fly!?"  Before the laughter or the answer of the adults present, I realized what a stupid question that was.  Yes, I was one of the impressionable morons, for all of about half a second.  Man did I feel dumb that I let the question go straight from my head to my big mouth.

Do you remember those Crystal Light commercials where someone would fall backwards onto a towel and it would turn into a swimming pool? Yeah, I tried that.

[gpw11]

haha.  That was like a year ago you dumbass.