Media Violence

Violence in the media is a very complex subject; extracting what actually causes aggression and what is just arbitrary circumstance can be a very sticky process. For instance, as a recreational player of video games, I play what might be considered violent games (mostly an online "shoot 'em up" game called Counter-Strike) in the eyes of someone who perceives what I am doing as "killing" or as violent, but there in lies the problem: I make no association with the death, killing or violence. Yes, I realize that on the screen there are guns and that to someone unfamiliar with the game it might look like mindless killing, but for me, it is truly just a challenge, a very engrossing and difficult one at that (due to the nature of the game I play, online, I am playing other people with real minds trying just as hard as I am to "come out on top"). The object isn't killing, the object is winning, competition and honing your skill, which takes practice, like anything else. Now, admittedly this is a bit tangental, but the point I am making is that it is not the actual video games that are causing these deviant behaviors, but rather outside stimuli cause the ills we are experiencing as a culture. Now, having said that, if the conditions are right, I definitely believe that video games and other types of media violence can at least influence an unstable target, but banning video games or censoring everything is not the correct approach, not given my experience, not based on the friends I have as models (given their video game history) or those whom which I have interacted with in gaming community at large (we've been under attack for some time now from these crusading Christian bible thumpers!). Video games are an intrical part of a large percentage of males in my generation's lives and to have this outlet reduced to the whim of outsiders who have never enjoyed beating a level or vanquishing an opponent, who see these games as purely degenerative and wasteful, to me is just ridiculous. Look at parenting, look at T.V., look at the politics, look at social unrest, look at economic pressures, hell even look at video games if you really want, but to resign to the notion that some game actually causes these real life tragedies is a simply ludicrous and short-sighted in scope (90% percent of the time). Unfortunately for the quiet throngs of video game practitioners world/nation wide, the select few psychos who are the ones showing up on T.V., giving the video game industy and its tenets a bad name, while simultaneously grafting a problem rooted in deep societal problems onto, what is for most guys in my generation, a simple, effective way to relax, escape the pressures of the bustling world and indulge in some fantasy, not go kill someone. It seems to me that ignorant grown ups want a red herring to scapegoat as the problem instead of maybe focusing on some of the more impactive reasons as to why people are angry or violent (like maybe capitalism, 40 hour week, racism, sexism, bad family values or upbringing, economic inequalities, a compromised standard of life, political unrest, apathy, drugs, abuse, childhood psychology, biological/psychological factors, misinformation etc). Now, this is definitely tilted towards my bias, a bias of first-hand experience mind you, and I am open to alternative perspectives; in fact I do believe that for people with undeveloped pysches (children and young adolescents) the effects of, what to me are completely fictitious "games," might be more influential, in that if they don't have the tools to rationalize the material they are presented with, but I think that the vast majority define video games as exactly what they are, games. It is the parents job to be explain to their children the difference between fantasy and reality, a bunch of latch key kids who don't have any role models are highly more susceptible to being impacted by the material they view on a monitor.

Violence in the media has evolved into a chief concern in the American social climate; in the arena of video games the key focal point has to do with what about watching/playing a program that contains violent images can actually lead to, or predispose people to violence outside of its fantastical reaches.

Seperating the causes and effects can be difficult and very subjective depending on your prior attitudes towards, and personal