Violent video games and movies are conditioning people "Pavlov style" to massacre and murder as

reply to post by grandmakdw


I started out in the old arcades, playing games like donkey kong, tetris, nemesis, r-type, ladybug and such... i never felt the urge to go shoot up anything....

I have played the games that are around now..... I still dont have the urge to go out and shoot people.... well, sometimes i do get angry at others but its nothing to do with video games!!

I was a beast at Space Invaders. I'm ready for an alien invasion.

I was pretty awesome at Asteroids. I'm sure I could fly a spaceship through an asteroid field.

I beat Super Mario Bros. many times. I believe I can smash bricks with my fists and stomp on turtle ducks easily.

I had a world record on Excite Bike. I think I could win a motocross race.

I beat Mike Tyson on Mike Tyson's punch out. I think I could do so in real life.

I don't think the problem is with guns or violent media, but with pharmaceuticals that aren't going through enough quality assurance testing that have adverse psychological side-effects that turn out to be worse than whatever they're supposed to be treating.

You don't see me kidnapping people and forcing them to act out the "Prisoner's Dilemma" in a strange warehouse-like facility.

If anything, this kind of thing helps me relieve stress if I've had a bad day, but I usually prefer my shooters to be more abstract, like Tempest 2000 or Geometry Wars. That's just my personal preference, though.

I remember when they used to lay the blame on comic books.

Originally posted by johngalt722
I've been playing video games for over 20 years and I have never had the slightest inclination to go out and slaughter people or commit violent crimes.

I can't wait for GTA V to come out, but I'm not filling the void by thinking it is okay to go outside and run hookers down with my stolen hummer.

Maybe I am just different and can tell the difference between how one should act in a video game and in real life. It is possible some people can't separate the two though.

Good post! and exactly what I was gonna say.

I'm waiting for GTA V too. Me and ol' Trevor's gonna have some fun. I've anticipated all GTA's. I've never went out and killed a bunch of people and I've been gaming since the 70's. None of my gamer friends have went on a rampages either. The problem is there's too many irresponsible gun owners out there who do not keep their weapons locked up appropriately. That's the issue that's not being discussed.

If a person cannot tell the difference between reality and fantasy, then they should NOT be playing video games in the first place....OR watching movies.....OR reading books. We need to burn all the books! See, I just solved the problem with an equally ignorant solution as blaming video games and movies. You're welcome.

Nope. Sorry op.

Its not the best idea to create excuses and scapegoats for individual human behavior. We do not allow for those who do wrong to have the high ground in blaming everything but themselves for their own actions. Every person on this planet is responsible and accountable for him/herself. I am seriously lost as to how or why there are people placing blame on everything, everyone and all but the individual. Someone shoots someone, rapes someone, beats someone, dumps a baby in the trash, or some other crime and its "oh the movie made me do it, the devil made me do it, the game made me do it, the book made me do it; oh and and lets not forget the ever famous, it was pier pressure! " I'm calling BULL#. Heres the truth, the damned INDIVIDUAL DID IT! Why? Because the asshole chose to do it.

Its pretty chicken # of people to blame society and everything under the sun for all the negatives that a fraction of the population are doing. No one should nor will be held accountable for others transgressions; they aren't ours to own, thats just insane. Please quit defending them by placing blame and responsibility on everyone else. Its is up to the individual, every day to put on his or her own clothes, wear them and walk out of that door without choosing to harm someone.

all video games ever taught me was to save the world or the princess.

so now people are backing off the causation, and using the "desensitizing" argument?

being able to handle (or perhaps mentally block) negative feelings for violence, still is no connection to being driven to cause violence.

personally i find being desensitized in many areas of society a good thing. i consider it a form of experience by education.
they are the people who can properly react in an emergency, while others panic and mentally shut down. the ones who have been exposed to such things regularly, can be efficient/productive/helpful, remain mentally awake.


the word "desensitized" is being demonized and blamed for violence.
i mean how many EMT's and police officers are exposed to gruesome and frightening situations? i want someone who can act, not puke their brains out and curl up in a corner.

Originally posted by johngalt722
I've been playing video games for over 20 years and I have never had the slightest inclination to go out and slaughter people or commit violent crimes.

I can't wait for GTA V to come out, but I'm not filling the void by thinking it is okay to go outside and run hookers down with my stolen hummer.

Maybe I am just different and can tell the difference between how one should act in a video game and in real life. It is possible some people can't separate the two though.

I am curious though if you are more desensitized to see actually murder or caring about it? As video games become more and more realistic at what point do you draw the line at beating a digital hooker and calling abuse? When an A.I. in game can scream, struggle and run do we have empathy for them as we do our fellow humans?

I have played video games most of my life, I have recently began to steer away from more gore and violent ones by choice.

Anyone that thinks repetition in any form cannot create a habit or set your opinion is not self-aware.

EXTREME VIOLENCE!!!



Up to 2000 Normans, up to 4000 Saxons and 6-700 horses were massacred at Hastings.... Look! A picture!! This must be what started it all.....

Sorry OP, stuff and nonsense, utter rubbish........

Violent video games are not the problem, it's how you act around them that is.

There are those who hold an honor code in which they play using that code, giving mercy to those that attacked you, or executing judgement on those that have wronged you.

Bioshock 2 gave the player this option. There are three characters that you have their lives in your hands, and it's up to you whether or not you can kill them. One attacked you because they saw you as a threat, one attacked you because they have done the wrong thing to you and fear that you'll seek revenge, and one attacked you because of a misunderstanding.

This is a test of who you are, but getting a obsession over it, is a problem

I have been playing video/computer games since the Atari 2600.
Not once have I had the urge or thoughts to go out and massacre people. I play all the popular FPS like Call of Duty series, Black ops, Battlefield 3. Still not wanting to murder people.

Stop blaming videos games. The people who murder people do not need video games to make them go and do it they would of done it without them. People have been committing murder and massacre's thousands of years before video games ever came into existence.

If you want to know what type of media condition people to kill then you are looking in the wrong place. Try books... you know the religious books, do they not condition people to commit murder and massacres?

The computer games industry has only been big for the last 15 years or so. Games such as Black Ops and Modern Warfare have only been around for 6 or 7 so years so you cant make assumptions about the effect of those types of games on people. Violent games have always been around since the beginning, they just had different themes and graphics.

Things are more realistic nowadays as the hardware to run them has got better and better. I could name some tv shows and movies even children's cartoons that had gun violence in them even before computer/video games existed did any one ever blame those?

I have not read through all of the replies but I agree with OP. I say this as one who has grown from the Original Nintendo era and on. I did not always feel this way and I recall in High School we had a mock trial and I was chosen to represent a pro-media stance in support of violent games.

The effects are deep and don't always show outwardly. I understand entertainment but what most don't understand is what is occurring in your mind as you are shown repeated simulated acts of violence. This can lead to frustration aggression. Your mind still reacts creating a fight or flight response that is never fulfilled. There is also the desensitization and predictive programming going on through the storytelling and imagery.

Most games today are not challenging in any way. The player has their hand held with little incentive for discovery. I feel this could be because of the greater potential for things like indoctrination to occur as the medium progressed to tell more complex stories. As entertainment you are not processing the information the same way you would as if you sat down to read a book.

Granted not everyone is going to go out and become a mass killer but many people will have a lowered sense of empathy which can lead to further societal decay as we lose the connections to our "fellow man". Don't believe me? Pull up any one of numerous YouTube videos showing where someone has been hurt in public and watch as people step over an injured human to get in line for an iPhone or some other garbage. Watch videos of gunship pilots and drone operators and ask yourself why they sound like they are playing a game when slaughtering people.

I feel that people are too comfortable at this point and things will not change however if we as adults can recognize that this occurs we can limit its impact on us and children through education.

Originally posted by abeverage

I am curious though if you are more desensitized to see actually murder or caring about it? As video games become more and more realistic at what point do you draw the line at beating a digital hooker and calling abuse? When an A.I. in game can scream, struggle and run do we have empathy for them as we do our fellow humans?

I think that it may play a part in desensitizing murder and violence, but a very minute part. You could say that anything at all involving violence plays a role in desensitizing it (TV, radio, books, real life). We can't avoid everything.

Originally posted by FuturePeace
all video games ever taught me was to save the world or the princess.

"So sorry, but your princess is in another castle."

This is one of the things often overlooked by the 'video games made them do it' proponents. The majority of games have you rescuing, saving, or protecting something and or someone. Which is the anti-thesis to their argument that games teach you to kill or be desensitized to violence.

M.

I think part of he problem now is that many kids are brought up with violent games as soon as they are old enough to hold a games controller. The kids are so young that many they haven't experienced 'loss', neither through the death of friends or relatives, nor pets. They can't eqaute the death in a video game to a real death and become somewhat numb to it.

There are also societal and enviromental ills that worsen this problem. We are being 'pavlov dogged' from every angle not just in terms of violence. An example would be that in the UK, election voter turn out is low because we've been pavlov dogged into believing theres no point in voting because no matter who wins nothing ever changes.

Interesting and varied viewpoints!

To me, it comes down to shades of grey. Both ends of the social spectrum are getting pushed to the middle and therein lies the problem. Is parenting a problem; yes. Is personal responsibility a problem; yes. Is social conditioning of certain behaviors a problem; yes.

Back during the days of Fred Flintstone did murder exist? Well, of course it did. If you didn’t like someone you picked up a rock and caved in the side of their skull with it. Back during the Revolutionary war you loaded a ball in your musket, patched it and fired it at someone. But times have changed. So, what’s different?

The lines between reality and fantasy have become blurred. As a kid you fantasized about being a pilot or an astronaut, and you picked up your model airplane, made motor sounds with your mouth and made a strafing run on your green plastic play army men on the living room floor. It was a long way from Billy’s living room to the cockpit of that P-51 or F-4 Phantom jet.

Today, Billy sits in his living room and launches his own strike mission from the couch on his X-Box. Depending on Billy’s age, today, Billy can walk right out of his living room and over to the mission trailer across the parking lot and remotely pilot a UAV mission, using almost identical technology, and put a Hellfire missile through someone’s kitchen window for real tens of thousands of miles away. And that’s just the technology side of it, but it carries through to the weaponry side of things also.

Seventy five years ago the best thing Billy could muster for a gun was likely some kind of a crude approximation in the form of a Red Ryder or silly looking plastic gun when he wanted to play army. Today, Billy can get his hands on an airsoft M-16 or M249 SAW that’s so realistic that it’s virtually unrecognizable from the real thing.

40 years ago Billy might have been able to sit in his living room with his antiquated Atari system and play pong, but he was unlikely to go “pong” someone to death after playing. Today, Billy sits in his living room and plays Call of Duty 67 Red Team Alpha where he murders people by the thousands for points. One day Billy gets an “F” in social studies because he didn’t take his Ritalin and he’s too busy texting his buddy’s about tonight’s mission profile on COD. Irate over the bad grade, he decides the game isn’t really all that different than grabbing his Dad’s AR-15 from the closet and scoring some extra credit points on the teacher who failed him…and anyone else that gets in the way.

Further, during WWII a battle rifle was a 9-10 pound fire breathing, heavy recoiling, monster that made you remember every step you slogged with it, and every shot you took with it. Plus the ammo was heavy too. Today, the modern battle rifle is light with virtually no recoil and ammunition is compact and light as well. About the only difference (in Billy’s mind) is it makes just a little more noise than his airsoft gun. The reality though is; there’s a grand canyon sized chasm of difference; this rifle is real and it kills real people dead. It’s not the rifle’s fault, it’s Billy’s fault, but what caused it?

The point here is the lines between reality and fantasy have closed to within so close of each other that it’s almost ‘easy’ to step from one world into the other. When you have video games that are so close to reality that you can practically get a college degree from playing them how is Billy to know the difference when all he does is play them every waking minute of the day.

Have you guys played some of these first person shooters where you fight random people live and they have headsets? What I experienced, regardless of which game, was that when children and young teens are on they ruin the game for everyone. They scream obscenities into the mic, yell at everyone including their own teammates and if they can friendly fire, they will. They are rude and throw huge tantrums and scream about people "stealing their kills." I use mute now when children with headsets join or I straight up quit and join a different game session.

People talk about personal responsibility for one's actions and I agree, but you still have to be honest and take into account other factors. Children have no money and most all stores refuse to sell mature games to kids (as they are supposed to), but mom and dad will buy the kid the game without ever knowing what it is. All they know is little Phil wanted this game and asked for it non stop, threw tantrums about it and well some days it's just easier to get him the game to keep him out of the way so mom and dad can get other things done. The TV and gaming systems are good babysitters you know?

So it begs the questions when a kid, teen or young adult goes out and kills others did the kid's parents buy him an adult rated game he should never have had at a young age? Did the parents let the child watch gory movies, like Saw where people are tortured and killed, from the age of 3 all the time? Children don't percieve reality the way we do, they are children, not miniature adults in an underdeveloped body. There was a thread on here a few days back about parents discussing those creepy elves that "spy" on children and how some kids have freaked out over it. Children and adults think differently, it's just how it is. You can't change the facts of biology by simply pretending the facts don't exist.
I don't believe someone is going to play COD or GTA and then run out and kill other people (and I don't think that is what the OP and others are saying either), but I definitely feel it helps train someone how to kill and desensitizes them most of all to violence and gore.

For example:
My friend's girlfriend got SUPER excited when she found out I was in the military. She started excitedly asking me if I had killed anyone and how awesome was it, etc. The sheer furor that she went at it over 20-30 minutes was quite honestly scary to me. I tried to explain to her that the military wasn't some glorious killing spree where you mow down other people. Her perception of what the military consists of was her, her boyfriend and all their friends playing COD 24/7. She is 18, old enough to know reality right?

I LOVE gaming and have done it for years. My ex and I use to play Borderlands EVERY weekend, all weekend long for 3 months because we were trying to get a super rare weapons drop. We aren't crazy. We never ran out and committed attrocities, but I think it's dishonest to sit here and say it doesn't have a desensitizing effect on people and potentially a worse effect on the young and those with mental or emotional issues. Future pschyopaths or mass murderers don't come with a visible label that says keep this kid away from violent influences and slasher films.

At the end of the day I have NO idea how you would prevent problems from this because we already have movie and game ratings saying you can't let individuals under a certain age watch/play this. Parents have to be around and have to care to enforce it. Saying let's pass more laws won't help fix a broken home or one where the parents have to work tons of hours just to put food on the table and are never home. Plus more laws is the last thing we need if you want a truly free life.

Originally posted by Jeremiah65
...The real-real problem is....we are an overly "entertained" society. We don't pluck our ass off the couch for much of anything. I had a video that described the situation but it has since been removed by the owner....it described how our society is brainwashed and dumbed down because of our entertainment. We choose to live vicariously...we choose to allow these "superstars" to have the lives we would like to have for ourselves...we "choose" to find this acceptable. I do not. I prefer to live for myself. I don't watch sports all that much...screw those guys...no one should be paid that much to play a damn game. I don't buy a lot of music or movies...I do occasionally but it's a minimum. No one should get paid that much to "pretend".

Good point.
When Rome started to burn and crumble as a society the rulers kept them complacent by making sure they access to LOTS of entertainment and more and more violent bloodsports to watch.

Perhaps it's not so much training future killers as it is making sure us peons are too lazy, unmotivated and entertained at home to rebel against the way we are being stolen from and enslaved.

To the posters who mention the objective of games being to save people. Does anyone remember the game State of Emergency I think put out by Rockstar the makers of Grand Theft Auto? The entire game was nothing more than you going through malls and public places mowing down as many innocent people as you can. At what point does it stop being entertainment and is instead a sadistic thrill kill simulation? There is no objective in this game and no noble story to tell. This is an example of the shock jock mentality that has pervaded many mediums.

Excellent point to the above poster about the Romans and entertainment. I am constantly reminded of Brave New World. As long as the people had drug induced orgies and entertainment they never thought to even question their existence.

Mom's too busy to put up with Jr. pestering her, so what does she do? Puts a game controller in his hands; that'll make him shut up.

Dad's not around when Jr. gets home from school, but he's not allowed to go anywhere, so what does he do? Puts a game controller in his hands to kill time (and murder people).

Pretty soon Jr. doesn't have a life and gets depressed; what does he do? Picks up a game controller, the only thing he can identify with, and has a relaxing session of murder sprees. So invigorating are the murder sprees that Jr. does nothing else. Jr. becomes even more depressed, the only thing that loves him and truly appreciates his abilities is his X-box.

Worried, Mom takes Jr. to the doctor to discuss Jr's depression. Doc prescribes some SSRI anti-depressants. Now Jr's focus on the game is intense because of the drugs. Junior steps further and further out of society and into the video game world. At the same time Jr. loses a little bit of feeling and emotion each day, again due to the drugs. Soon Jr. doesn't feel any emotions other than competition and rage...

Suddenly Jr. snaps...

Who's to blame? Well, we all are actualy, including junior himself. We've allowed society to become what it is! We created it.

It's pretty telling when you need to have national advertising campaigns telling kids to go outside and play for 60 minutes every day. The only program I ever knew as a kid was "come inside for 60 minutes...pleeeeze"!

reply to post by johngalt722


I have been playing video games for 24 years.

Never thought about murdering someone or harming people.

This is FUD.