Absolute Wuss

[Bridge]

To be honest, playing video games never affects children - nor has it.

Science says you're wrong:
- "Media Violence and children: a complete guide for parents and professionals" - Gentile, D.A. (2003)
- "The Psychology of Teen Violence and Victimization" - Paludi, M.A. (2011)

The stories on the media are just sensationalist and that guy who shot people and said he trained in a video game? He's insane anyway so I'd take anything he says with a pinch of salt. Video Game graphics are so distanced from reality, even now, that children can figure out that this isn't real.

It's not only Anders Breivik who used games as training simulators, but other shooters as well. The military has been using simulators for pilots for several decades, even when they didn't look anything near realistic, and they were only the pioneers in a wide field.

Infact, I'd say children are more aware of the brutality of violence today because video games are so soft compared to the real thing. They think that you don't really ever get badly hurt due to video games then they see their first school fight/have their first school fight and realize.

Not as long as they pick weaker targets. Especially if you use weapons, you rarely experience pain yourself.
The games teach everything but pain, though. They desensitize you towards violence and suffering, teach techniques, and conditions you with philosophies that justifies violence. To a child, a game can be a more involving parent than an actual parent.

I'd say playing a game like Amnesia could affect you if you're seven. Not the topics but just the terror you'd feel - and then you wouldn't be as easily scared in real life.

Now you're saying that it does condition you, just because now it suits you.

It is very rare for a video game to genuinely affect peoples lives and views on violence.

The whole idea behind having stories in media, is to affect the viewer in some way, and it works very well.

1. So you are proving that sensationalist bullshit is not bullshit by citing sensationalist bullshit. Well done. No really, it is a good tactic. Videogames do affect people on a very deep level (enough to make them kill people) yes, but these people are either extremely weak-minded or legally insane. Normal, sensible people do not react this way to stimuli. If you take someone when they are an infant and train them to become murderers by playing violent video games all their life all the while telling them that it is the correct thing to do then videogames can affect people. But guess what? Videogames are not propaganda. Nobody is trying to teach anybody how to live their lives. Videogames are just another form of art that express various ideas and you are not forced to adopt those ideas to your own thinking. They simply allow you to experience that side, a side which you may not have known before, for a certain amount of time. For fuck's sake, if the child in question is playing on a console connected to a television, they are probably spending more time watching children's shows and movies learning their basic morals.

2. FPSs are nothing like real life. Even if it is realistically portrayed you leave out all of the other basic factors. Even if that person learned from a videogame that "killing people is fun" (that person is insane btw) then that person would also need to 1) purchase a weapon/weapons which takes a long time or steal a weapon which is not easy; gun control laws prohibit you from keeping the key or any ammo anywhere near the case/locker in which you keep your weapon and 2) Go to either a remote location away from all civilization (depending on where you live probably a very long drive) or a shooting range which require you to have a gun license which takes a long time to get and requires extensive screening from the police, after which you need to practice for a long time to become good at shooting and used to the effects firearms have on your body. The person in question has months or if he wants to steal a weapon running the risk of getting caught and go in totally unprepared a week at least to change his mind. Even if this crazy idea originated in a video game he must be genuinely insane to stay determined for that long. Video games do not make people insane and are not a good training regiment for mass murder.

3) Surely you must know he didn't mean people would become psychopaths because of Amnesia. He meant that it would affect them because it is terrifying.

4) See my first point. Art is not usually propaganda. It tells stories, it does not force you to agree with everything that is portrayed therein.