Hello there folks. I just saw a post on Slashdot entitled Violent Games 'Almost' As Dangerous as Smoking. And as a good violent-video-game-playing geek, I though perhaps I would weigh in my personal opinion.
First, just looking at the title, the article implies one of two things. Either a) violent media is the cause of almost as many deaths as smoking, or b) smoking is not as dangerous as originally thought. I'll tell you right now that it is not the latter, and as a smoker I was very disappointed to find that out. now if you haven't read the article please do so now. Click here TV, film and game violence seen as a threat . If you don't know, I have a little son, Logan. As a father, I am constantly considering what the effects of the media on my child will be, regardless of the fact that he is really too young to see any violent TV or play any violent games. And let me tell you, where the media is concerned, the level of violence in the media is the LEAST of my worries.
Now I realize that at this point most of you will be saying OMG, what a horrible father Panvamp is letting his young child watch violent media! This is not true. I will not let my kid watch anything that I feel is too over-the-top. No Kill Bill for my little guy, until I feel he is mature enough to handle it. I'm not going to be against him watching Spongebob Squarepants because there is a part where Spongebob gets hit with a rock. Or any of the Looney Tunes that are deemed "violent" nowadays that were once considered "slapstick". I have little problem with him seeing it, because if he decides to take a note from Spongebob and smack a playmate or say, his mother, with a rock, then he will be disciplined and punished and I guarantee he will not do it again, regardless of seeing it on TV again. This is part of an ancient skill called "parenting".
Notice that NONE of that has anything to do with the violence being a threat to his health or even "public health". How this relates to smoking deaths is beyond me. And when he is fifteen or sixteen and I do sit down and watch Kill Bill, I trust that my years of parenting will have convinced him that eviscerating someone with a razor sharp katana is just not something that should be done. If I felt that he would do that, not only have I failed as a parent, but there is no way he would be watching violent movies. But believe me, I will not let my kid grow up to be someone that is particularly violent. Will he get into fight or two? Sure. That is part of life. The aforementioned article seems to imply that exposure to violent media will make him more of a danger to health. Of course it fails to mention just WHO'S health. His health? "Public health"? I'm not sure.
The article seems to make a leap of logic as well. Even a smoker can tell you that smoking is not good for you and if you smoke enough, it likely will kill you. The article cites a study where people exposed to violent media are found to be more aggressive than normal. But aggression does not equal death. Not by a long shot. As anyone in the sales and business world will tell you, the aggressive marketers generally win over the more passive marketers. Aggression is good in the sports world as well (but I don't see any articles claiming football or boxing is as dangerous as smoking). Aggression is part of life, and in life, the more aggressive generally do better than the passive. Sure, there are limits on aggression. As in sports, life has rules. There are acceptable uses of aggression that can be used as long as these rules are followed. Hopefully, that is where that whole parenting thing comes in. believe me, I don't want my son being too passive either. If he lets people walk all over him, his enjoyment out of life will be far less. Some of the above statements will not be seen as politically correct, but it does not make them any less true.
Many of you will state that there seems to be a definite rise of violence in the modern world. While this is subjective, I can concur that there do seem to be more shootings and violence attributed to younger people these days. I can imagine that the average person will make the logical leap that these people were raised with violence and therefore violent media causes these incidents. I will go out on a limb here and say that it is not the violent media that causes these things, but a distinct lack of proper parenting. With the rising divorce rates and single parent families, I feel that I have more than a leg to stand on in regards to that statement. I'm not saying that divorced families or single parents cannot make good parents. To me, I feel that a single parent must work twice as hard to parent a child. I realize that it is hard work, but this is the price of having children. When parenting is not done, the child will fall through the cracks. They will become adults that were not told that violence in media should not be emulated and they did not learn that there is a punishment for being violent outside the rules of society.
There is one place where violent media and smoking are related. I realize that as my son gets older, despite my amount of parenting, he will be getting into things and doing things that I don't want him to do. Despite all of their hard efforts my parents ended up with me being a smoker. They were good parents, they told me smoking was bad. I made the choice at 15 to start smoking and the truth is, there really was nothing they could do to stop me. Violence is the same. If I was going to watch something at 15 that they didn't want me to watch, chances are I was going to do it anyway. I am not a violent killer now however, because my parents instilled in me values. They taught me the right thing to do. It didn't matter that I played games where I "fragged the weak, hurdled the dead", I knew that in real life, killing is wrong. I could go on and on stating that gun violence is on the rise because people do not train their kids how to use and respect a firearm, but that is really beyond the scope of this argument. The point here is that proper parenting is supposed to prepare a person for just these type of situations.
I think that if we want to avoid violence in the future society, we need to spend time with your kids. If you cannot handle this, please do not have children. Lord knows I don't want to get a bullet in the back because you didn't tell your kid that shooting someone like in Grand Theft Auto is not appropriate.
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