View Full Version : The Truth About Violent Youth and Video Games
KarmaGhost
07-26-2005, 12:11 PM
Game Revolution (http://gr.bolt.com/) has an interesting article (http://gr.bolt.com/articles/violence/violence.htm) about "The Truth About Violent Youth and Video Games." According to the author:
Kids are not killing each other more frequently than they used to. In fact, it turns out the opposite is true.The article provides information taken from the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Statistics which suggests that, in some cases, youth violence is actually at an all-time low.
An interesting read. Thanks to [H]ard|OCP (http://www.hardocp.com) for the link.
Mrbunchypants
07-26-2005, 12:46 PM
I wonder if jack has seen this...... time to email him and a few news outlets.
Crabby
07-26-2005, 01:28 PM
The logical conclusion to such a thesis is that an oversaturated media culture is creating a heightened sensationalism concerning incidents that do occur. To proportions of which we will only be able to dream until the system implodes.
Cha-Ka
07-26-2005, 01:44 PM
Thanks for posting that article. I found it intelligent, logical, and exactly the kind of thing the game industry needs to fend off Jack and his ilk. Cheers to the author, Duke Ferris!
anakin876
07-26-2005, 02:14 PM
It can't be! If video games aren't causing the terror, then who is? My child must be under th influence of someone - even though those statistics prove that kids are not killing each other more often.
Seriously though, that was a great article. I can't seem to access it at the moment - did the man get them?
I do have one question - were those graphs and numbers referencing total homicides, or as percentages of the current population. If they were averages - then perhaps the total homicide has gone up while the average has gone down?
Varsity
07-26-2005, 02:46 PM
Please understand that I’m not a conspiracy theorist.
...
Every hour you spend interacting with a game is one hour less spent drooling in front of their fear-mongering programming.
...
The government is so desperate to find some youth crime to crack down on that they’re strip-searching kids for 10 bucks while locking up 11 year-old girls for throwing rocks and eating french fries.Yeah, really good. We've got this sort of crap in our articles.
The figures themselves are interesting and should be useful for the honchos to quote. They aren't complete though, and that's a weakness. The under 12s aren't counted (hey, I'm not the one who's going to argue this stuff!) and fatal firearm crime isn't mentioned whereas nonfatal is.
TheKeck
07-26-2005, 02:54 PM
Michael Crichton somewhat addresses this issue in his most recent book. Not about games or youth specifically, but that violence is down and people are generally safer than they've ever been. The media, however, makes it seems like things are just getting worse and worse. It's an interesting thought.
A Lusty Alien
07-26-2005, 03:16 PM
It was per capita. In 1993 it was about 44 incidents per 100,000 in the age range of 18 - 24, with a steady decline to 2002 where it was around 27 incidents per 100,000 in that same age group.
BenSkywalker
07-26-2005, 03:22 PM
As follow up to the per capita numbers- birth rates have been steady to decline for decades now- massive birth rate increases are certainly not compensating for such enormous per capita declines in violent crime.
Cha-Ka
07-26-2005, 03:24 PM
Michael Crichton somewhat addresses this issue in his most recent book.
Aw come off it. We all know Michael Crichton couldn't address a stamped envelope.
/couldn't resist slamming cheesy writer.
anakin876
07-26-2005, 03:24 PM
Excellent - per capita makes the most sense. I wonder what the actual console per capita is.
TheKeck
07-26-2005, 03:43 PM
Aw come off it. We all know Michael Crichton couldn't address a stamped envelope.
/couldn't resist slamming cheesy writer.
Hey, Michael Crichton is my favorite author! :mad:
Oh well, I guess everyone gets their opinion. :o
mister_slim
07-26-2005, 07:21 PM
Hey, Michael Crichton is my favorite author! :mad:
Oh well, I guess everyone gets their opinion. :o
Yours is wrong by the way.
I'll get back to you on what your opinion should be.
Yours is wrong by the way.
I'll get back to you on what your opinion should be.
I want Slim's opinion on my stuff too. I like Clive Barker, Iced Grande Caramel Lattes, and commericals before movies in the theater. If you could go ahead and judge me, I can then move on with my life and ditch those things which were holding me back.
zapata666
07-26-2005, 08:08 PM
An article concerning the effects of videogames on youth backed up by facts and not a puritanical self-hatred of the human body and its desires? Has the whole world gone insane?
Wonka
07-26-2005, 09:42 PM
Yes well now none of this is really new (that's not to say that its not worth reporting, because it definitely IS).
But humans have been saying that the world was going to hell in a handbasket for generations. Each generation comes along and through a simple trick of human memory comes to believe that the apocalypse must be just about nigh, (in spite of all manner of numerical evidence to the contrary). How is this possible? Because humans have a hard time remembering bad stuff that happens to them over the long haul (it's probably a mechanism to keep us from becoming horribly depressed as we age). Consider that if you teach someone something with positive reinforcement, they are more likely to remember it than if you use a stick (long term, of course). Over the course of ones lifetime, one eventually starts to percieve even the most awful of childhoods as "the golden years". Before long, people are aghast at what has "happened to the world". And not long after that they start to rave about how to "protect the children", from all these "new" evils that never happened when they were young.
Our nation has a rapidly aging demographic. Each year, the majority of us (on average) are getting more conservative and fearful of change, while the crime rate plummets (partially because old people don't have the "gumption" to go rob the local quickie mart anymore). Meanwhile even the young people are avoiding these sorts of behavoirs more than ever (for a lot of other reasons). The result is that everyone is afraid for their lives at a time when there is less to actually fear than ever before.
So what do we get from all this? Why an absurd culture war that is being fought over hard in spite of mountains of evidence that in fact we have never been better off. Some people want to blame games, others want to blame gays, everyone seems to have a favorite scapegoat, but the one thing they are all sure about is the idea that the world is somehow worse than they remember it.
NACIONAL
07-26-2005, 10:10 PM
What a great article....!
please someone send it to Mr. jack...ass.
The article provides information taken from the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Statistics which suggests that, in some cases, youth violence is actually at an all-time low.That's because they are all inside honing their killing skills, just wait a couple of years and we will have unstoppable 12 year olds popping headshots and jumping up and down.
Michael Crichton somewhat addresses this issue in his most recent book. Not about games or youth specifically, but that violence is down and people are generally safer than they've ever been. The media, however, makes it seems like things are just getting worse and worse. It's an interesting thought.I believe Michael Moore mentioned this in Bowling for Columbine, about how murders in South Central have dropped by 50% or so, but media reports on murders in the area have doubled (numbers my be out, been a while since I watched it).
Commence Michael Moore bashing... now.
Commence Michael Moore bashing... now.
Michale Moore is a scorned fat kid that, for reasons known solely to drunk Hollywood execs, was given a camera. His one good film - Roger & Me - is, sadly, the only one with any real merit and the lone film of his that isn't simply pieced together to skew an opinion. Man has the talent of Uwe Boll while lacking the unintentional humor.
How was that?
mister_slim
07-27-2005, 12:41 PM
What about Canadian Bacon?
smoonshine5
07-27-2005, 02:28 PM
What about Canadian Bacon?
That was a good one ^_^
NACIONAL
07-27-2005, 03:35 PM
Michale Moore is a scorned fat kid that, for reasons known solely to drunk Hollywood execs, was given a camera. His one good film - Roger & Me - is, sadly, the only one with any real merit and the lone film of his that isn't simply pieced together to skew an opinion. Man has the talent of Uwe Boll while lacking the unintentional humor.
How was that?
i think that his movies have a somewhat "tabloid" tone... but you can't deny some of the facts he portrais there.
i think that his movies have a somewhat "tabloid" tone... but you can't deny some of the facts he portrais there.
I agree, he shows facts, but that's like me saying that Seven is actually a love story made for the family and then going on to only show scenes between Brad Pitt's character alongside his on-screen wife Gwyneth Paltrow as evidence. Sure that stuff is in there, but all the rest of the crap around it is left out that would negate or shed doubt on his theories.
NACIONAL
07-27-2005, 04:03 PM
I agree, he shows facts, but that's like me saying that Seven is actually a love story made for the family and then going on to only show scenes between Brad Pitt's character alongside his on-screen wife Gwyneth Paltrow as evidence. Sure that stuff is in there, but all the rest of the crap around it is left out that would negate or shed doubt on his theories.
poit well taken...
well, at least you can't deny that Bush is a turd.. isn't he?..isn't he????
poit well taken...
well, at least you can't deny that Bush is a turd.. isn't he?..isn't he????
Yeah, that one's more or less a given.
As opposed too??
As opposed to what? Reference something.
Other presidents maybe, errr polys in general? You can't just say Bush is a turd without .........you know what never mind I don't even want to dig this deep into the subject
Other presidents maybe, errr polys in general? You can't just say Bush is a turd without .........you know what never mind I don't even want to dig this deep into the subject
Ah, gotcha. Agreed, no President ever does what I would say is a stellar job.
/ends hole digging discussion
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