Should stores sell violent video games to minors?

[#HBC | ѕoup]

Lately, if you have noticed, there is a current discussion in the supreme court debating wheter stores should be allowed to sell Violent video games to minors.

In my opnion, i do not see any problem with selling violent video games to minors.

It is the parent's job to decide what their kid plays, not the kid himself.

in an example, Gamestop and many other stores enforce a rule saying a minor cannot buy a M-rated video game without consent from a Guardian or adult.

Should be enough, right?

well, according to others, parents can't just be a waiver.

a quote from the new york times:
The Supreme Court is currently debating this question and trying to determine “what the drafters of the Bill of Rights would have made of an extremely violent game like Postal 2.” What do you think about this? How violent, “deviant,” “offensive,” or “morbid” should a game have to be to make it unsuitable for people under 18? How would you draw the line? And how do you think violent video games affect young people in general? Why?

I'll update this later,but the questions are all there.

 

[Terywj [태리]]

I think that comparing the standards of the drafters of the Bill Of Rights and the Supreme Court of now is a rather difficult task, so trying to determine what they would have said and compare and refine it for today's society seems...blank. But for now I'll try to focus on how violence tends to or can affect people.

While there definitely needs to be a line - without one everything would run amok - I believe that the current setup is proper. There's no real need aside from the parent confirming the choice because if the parent didn't want their children playing such a video game they would never agree with it, stemming from their understanding of what and how violence in the media will affect their child.

The issue with violence in our media also leads to many different paths, leaving a clear answer to how violence in the media affects people uncretain. I quote following studies done in the 1970's and 1980's. If these were applicable in those times, then they're certainly more applicable now, with the ever-expanding media. The complete article can be found here.

Andrea Martinez at the University of Ottawa conducted a comprehensive review of the scientific literature for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in 1994. She concluded that the lack of consensus about media effects reflects three "grey areas" or constraints contained in the research itself.

First, media violence is notoriously hard to define and measure. Some experts who track violence in television programming, such as George Gerbner of Temple University, define violence as the act (or threat) of injuring or killing someone, independent of the method used or the surrounding context. Accordingly, Gerber includes cartoon violence in his data-set. But others, such as University of Laval professors Guy Paquette and Jacques de Guise, specifically exclude cartoon violence from their research because of its comical and unrealistic presentation.

Second, researchers disagree over the type of relationship the data supports. Some argue that exposure to media violence causes aggression. Others say that the two are associated, but that there is no causal connection. (That both, for instance, may be caused by some third factor.) And others say the data supports the conclusion that there is no relationship between the two at all.

Third, even those who agree that there is a connection between media violence and aggression disagree about how the one effects the other. Some say that the mechanism is a psychological one, rooted in the ways we learn. For example, Huesmann argues that children develop "cognitive scripts" that guide their own behaviour by imitating the actions of media heroes. As they watch violent shows, children learn to internalize scripts that use violence as an appropriate method of problem-solving.

Other researchers argue that it is the physiological effects of media violence that cause aggressive behaviour. Exposure to violent imagery is linked to increased heart rate, faster respiration and higher blood pressure. Some think that this simulated "fight-or-flight" response predisposes people to act aggressively in the real world.

Still others focus on the ways in which media violence primes or cues pre-existing aggressive thoughts and feelings. They argue that an individual’s desire to strike out is justified by media images in which both the hero and the villain use violence to seek revenge, often without consequences.

In her final report to the CRTC, Martinez concluded that most studies support "a positive, though weak, relation between exposure to television violence and aggressive behaviour." Although that relationship cannot be "confirmed systematically," she agrees with Dutch researcher Tom Van der Voot who argues that it would be illogical to conclude that "a phenomenon does not exist simply because it is found at times not to occur, or only to occur under certain circumstances."

Children with lots of exposure to violent media tend to become more aggressive.

In 1956, researchers took to the laboratory to compare the behaviour of 24 children watching TV. Half watched a violent episode of the cartoon Woody Woodpecker, and the other 12 watched the non-violent cartoon The Little Red Hen. During play afterwards, the researchers observed that the children who watched the violent cartoon were much more likely to hit other children and break toys.

Six years later, in 1963, professors A. Badura, D. Ross and S.A. Ross studied the effect of exposure to real-world violence, television violence, and cartoon violence. They divided 100 preschool children into four groups. The first group watched a real person shout insults at an inflatable doll while hitting it with a mallet. The second group watched the incident on television. The third watched a cartoon version of the same scene, and the fourth watched nothing.

When all the children were later exposed to a frustrating situation, the first three groups responded with more aggression than the control group. The children who watched the incident on television were just as aggressive as those who had watched the real person use the mallet; and both were more aggressive than those who had only watched the cartoon.

Over the years, laboratory experiments such as these have consistently shown that exposure to violence is associated with increased heartbeat, blood pressure and respiration rate, and a greater willingness to administer electric shocks to inflict pain or punishment on others. However, this line of enquiry has been criticized because of its focus on short term results and the artificial nature of the viewing environment.

If these observed traits were shown merely in children from violent media (from something like Woody Woodpecker, nonetheless), then think about the effects of first person shooters such as Call of Duty or simply any vioilent video game out there. Likewise, the children were simply watching violence occur, not causing the violence with their own hands / controllers.

Violent media desensitizes people to real violence.

A number of studies in the 1970’s showed that people who are repeatedly exposed to media violence tend to be less disturbed when they witness real world violence, and have less sympathy for its victims. For example, Professors V.B. Cline, R.G. Croft, and S. Courrier studied young boys over a two-year period. In 1973, they reported that boys who watch more than 25 hours of television per week are significantly less likely to be aroused by real world violence than those boys who watch 4 hours or less per week.

When researchers Fred Molitor and Ken Hirsch revisited this line of investigation in 1994, their work confirmed that children are more likely to tolerate aggressive behaviour in the real world if they first watch TV shows or films that contain violent content.

If this doesn't worry you, then I'm worried. Essentially "numbing" someone's response to violence just by watching media. While this first study only references amount of television watched, the reconfirmation in the second paragraph confirms that people become more tolerable of aggression after watching violent media. Do video games fall under this category of violent media? Sure they do.

I would like to say out of the kindess of my heart that people are not motivated or stimulated by violent media, but the evidence seems to be straightforward. While watching or playing violent media doesn't guarantee negative "sideffects" there seems to be a correlation between the two.

 

[El Nino]

I'm not taking a stance right now, but here are some discussion points for you guys to consider.

1) http://doc.utwente.nl/58308/1/Schie97children.pdf

This study conducted in the Netherlands shows no correlation between aggression in children and videogames.

One criticism on that study is that it doesn't use an established taxnomoy to classify types of videogames (ie. violent vs. non-violent).

2) http://journals.humankinetics.com/j...hildrensmoralreasoningandaggressiontendancies

This study shows a positive correlation between aggression in children and participation in contact sports. Should we also limit the athletic activities of children for the same reason we try to limit their exposure to violent media?

3) Does aggression always lead to anti-social behavior? Or is this aggression a manageable character trait?

4) Does being desensitized to violence always lead to a propensity for anti-social behavior?

5) Can aggression and desensitization to violence be used in prosocial ways?

One point to consider for questions 3-5:
Police officers sometimes become desensitized to violence due to the nature of their work. Police training often involves techniques to bring out a form of controlled aggression that is necessary for their occupation.

6) Are the effects of exposure to violent media permanent or short-term?

 

[vVv Rapture]

I always get confused with the actual process in which these kids get the video games. If they are violent, they'd have higher ESRB ratings, which most likely means a parent would have to buy the game.

Isn't that why we have these ratings? If something is rated Mature, which is "for" people of 17 years of age and older, why can't it just be enforced that people who buy the game have to be that age or older?

From there, it's out of the hands of anyone else but the buyer. If the buyer is the parent and the parent allows the child to play it after purchase, then that's their prerogative.

 

[El Nino]

Well, America has this obsession with liability. As far as the U.S. legal system is concerned, there are no accidents. And to a certain extent, it's almost as if minors aren't recognized as being responsible for their own actions. So, if someone under 17 commits an act of violence, for some reason, people look for a cause outside of that individual. The assumption is that there must be an outside force responsible, rather than the individual in question.

I wonder sometimes if the older generation just outright fears the younger because they are a part of something that is totally incomprehensible. Maybe culture is evolving too quickly due to technology. Maybe we can barely keep up, so we point fingers at the easiest thing to blame, even though aggression and violence (even among children) is hardly a new thing.

 

[Photos]

if a game has been deemed appropriate for minors, then a minor can buy it. if a parent or legal guardian decides to let his/her child use his/her possession, then it is the jurisdiction of the parent as the govt. cannot intercede in home matters. or, in other words, alchoholic drinks have the same status as M-rated games. it's up to the parent.