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Caro

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Keep children away from violent computer games: experts

VIENNA, Mar 20, 2009 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- It is necessary to keep children away from violence-related computer games, said three Austrian psychologists based on their latest research results.

According to Friday's reports of Austrian media, in their latest research titled "Violence and Violence Prevention," three scientists from the Psychology Department of Austria's University of Vienna suggested that a "zero-tolerance" attitude should be adopted in dealing with youths who play violent computer games. Youths should stay away from those violent games as they "do no good but only harm."

The research results proved that those youths who often play violence-related computer games tend to be more aggressive than those who only play games with less or no violence, for which the scientists explained that violent games not only tempt imitation, but the gaming environment also easily leads to a reactive or imaginary aggressive mentality.

"Children who play violence-related computer games will easily show aggression when irritated, unsatisfied or angry," so they are more aggressive than children who do not play such games. The research also found that especially among the 16-year-olds surveyed, boys who like to play computer games with brutality- related contents have even reached 60 percent.

Therefore, the scientists suggested that parents and teachers should begin related education in primary schools to keep children from violent computer games.

On March 11, a world-shocking campus shooting happened in Germany, leaving 17 people dead. The murderer was only a 17-year- old boy, who, according to investigation, is enthusiastic about violent computer games.

I hope everyone is having a great vacation or staycation!

5 comments:

luangrath said...

We had this discussion last year in Optimus Prime's psych class. We also had 1 or 2 hardcore gamers in our class who made me chuckle.

I like that song! I had never seen the video though, it is pretty neat.

Anonymous said...

My boyfriend plays Counter Strike like there's no tomorrow, and I've brought this up with him. His response? No correlation. But I dunno, I see his point. Researchers could be connecting these mass murders to people that play these video games. But does everybody, or even a large majority, that plays these violent computer games turn out to be a murderer? I think that is a little far-fetched, but as far as there being a correlation between aggression and seeing violent things happening...I definitely see it.

Oh, and I'm loving the new blog picture! Maybe I'm getting too wrapped up in English, but I can see that picture on a poster in a dystopian society. "CARO SEES ALL." or something. :D

Mr. Caro said...

I wish Built to Spill had more videos!

Alex, interesting, video game play/gaming appears to attract the same reward circuit part of the brain thus if it is violent play, the player is being rewarded for violent acts. Of course many can control and see the difference, but given the mirror effect of one's neurons as well as the reward response to play, it make violence much more likely.

Thanks! I like your new photo! You look like you should be on some album cover!

Anonymous said...

i play violent video games more then anybody i know. and i am not gonna lie it does take some weiord prospective into your life. sometimes i want to shoot people and head shot them. its weird. like it gives death like it means nothing. it desensitizes you to death. like you will get revived after i shoot you or something. i dk i dont play anymore and i am healed. thanks doctor Caro!

ChrisKing =) said...

That reminds me of gta3,vc,sa,and 4"grand theft auto"When kids play those types of games they don't really think about what could happen if they did it in real life.Some of them tried and now face the worst punishment.I guess some people forget that it was just a game,no matter how real they try to make it.