The ‘bad’ influence of games
Lately, games’ supposedly bad influence comes a lot in the picture. Allow me to have some objections.
It seems like a trend in the US to point out games as the cause of violence youngsters commit. Just as with so many trends this one has also come to our continent. I get the impression that the game world just has to serve as a scapegoat.
Opponents of violent games often share the opinion that those games train gamers in killing because of the interactive elements. Considering the wide distribution of games and the popularity of GTA which is often pointed out as the culprit, I should every day come across a couple of serial killers, including some family members. Fortunately that isn’t the case.
A great deal of specialists agree that violent games don’t turn a normal person into a murderer, but unstable individuals might use it as a source of inspiration. Mind you, this applies to TV, movies, books, etc. too. Late 19th century many youngsters shot themselves because they were broken-hearted. They imitated their hero from a novel of Goethe (a German writer), the young man in this story commits suicide because of an unrequited love. Tragic, but would we solve this by prohibiting the book? There will always be another example to follow, so the blacklist would ultimately become extremely long.
The real problems are in my opinion the psychological problems which drive people to madness. Before they execute their plans they think about it for a long time, and usually they drop hints, whether they’re clear or not. But how many others can recognise these signs? If someone would distinguish these signs, something can be done before it escalates like that. On top of that there’s a taboo on psychological problems. Maybe something has to be done about that first.
Plenty of (objective) research is still needed to find out how and why certain things happen. We will only benefit from the discovery of the right cause.
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