[ale] Quiet

[Sean Kilpatrick]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Friday 07 May 2004 12:51 am, Joe Knapka wrote:
| The book cited below may provide a useful perspective about this. I
| haven't read it, but it looks interesting.

"This" is the relationship, if any, between First Person
Shooter video games (FPS) and kids killing kids with guns.

The book suggested is "Killing Monsters" by Gerard Jones.

Looking at the Amazon page Joe referenced, I find this quote from
Publishers Weekly:

" Jones forcefully argues that violent video games, movies,
music and comics provide a safe fantasy world within which
children learn to become familiar with and control the
frightening emotions of anger, violence and sexuality. He
debunks studies linking violent media with violence in society
and argues that children clearly understand the difference
between pretend and reality. Providing realistic and helpful
advice, Jones says parents need to learn to differentiate
between what violent games mean to children and what they
mean to adults, and to stop imposing their understanding of
them on children."

<begin RANT>

I would counter that it is folly to have kids, guns, and
first-person-shooter video games in the same house at the
same time. Anecdotal evidence suggests strongly that young
children do _not_ clearly understand the difference between
"pretend and reality." What anecdotal evidence?: the near
weekly newspaper reports of one small child finding a firearm
and shooting a playmate. In fact, children, unless exposed to
real firearms at an early age, have absolutely no idea of their
destructive power. I would posit that they do _not_ compare/contrast 
what they see on the video screen with reality. Reality is that
if you point a real firearm at someone and pull the trigger
that someone is going to be severely wounded -- if not killed.
On the video screen the target (alien life form/whatever) just
pops back up on the next screen to be shot again. If all a
young child (<10) knows about guns is what he has learned from
video games, he has no reason to suspect/understand that real guns
with real bullets affect real people any differently.

I raised kids while firearms were in the same house, but this 
was before FPS games came to be. When the first version of
Castle Wolfenstein appeared, my son was old enough to possess
a .22 rifle and know how to use it. (Although to this day I
do not think he has ever shot anything with firearms other than
paper targets.)

<end RANT>

Sean

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFAm52P73hVp4UeGJERApvcAKCOMn3QHlOnmzrgAHbCIjcJtZYDqgCgx1nf
MMZN7OFWWAR9dfEaP0pMGHU=
=mj7Z
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----