A response: Grand Theft Innocence

This is a response to the blog post of a fellow classmate which could be found here - Mel CRIM2027 blog: Grand Theft Innocence

Plants vs. Zombies: surely this isn't harmful? Zombies are trying to eat your brains!
Your plants are just trying to protect you!

Videos games have been evolving rapidly from using wired brick controllers to using your whole body as a controller (how awesome is that?). As Mel Kheir (2011), my classmate, wrote "the appeal of video games is that they enable users to immerse and involve themselves in the story-lines and action of the games, rather than passively watching a video or listening to the radio” and hence, there are concerns when violent video games increases the aggression and are harmful to youths. It has been found in 2008, that approximately 85% of all video games include some form of violence (Source: Cognitive Daily).

I have many friends who play such violent video games such as Left 4 Dead I + II (censored in Australia) which involves players to work in a team of four to kill zombies. Dead Rising is also a similar game in which you kill zombies. Plant vs. Zombies (is really cute), Dead Island, Killing Floor – these are all games in which you kill zombies; and not living human beings. Sure, my friends do get frustrated when they lose or if they ‘died’, but they are not serial violent gamers, and they do not use these violent ways to harm other people around them.

There has been countless of stories of harm caused by youths who played violent video games and it was only a few days ago where I came across a newspaper article where a 15 year old boy plotted and killed his 7 year old neighbour just to steal her earrings and sell to fund his video game addiction. And what about that guy who wanted to be like Dexter and killed like him? Is there an underlying cause to this behaviour?

As criminologists, I think we should take into account other variables and causal factors which could lead one into being violent. There is only a correlation between violent video games and increased real-life violence, sure, but is it really the cause?

Positivist criminology theorises that “behaviour is determined, in the sense that the individual behaviour is shaped by factors outside the individual’s control” (White & Perrone, 2010: 56) like biological and psychological factors. The classical theory states that the offender is rational and chooses their own actions. Violent video games are just a situational factor which, I believe, only contributes to violent behaviour because of the individual. We are all exposed to violent television programs and us criminology students are bombarded with images of crime every day, but we’re not going out there as violent delinquents. To be able to act in a violent way like Dexter or like the “criminal hero” (Kheir, 2011) the individual must know everything about the show/game. What made them obsessive over this fantasy world? What made them lose self-control? Do youths get too bored these days which cause them to fall into violent criminal behaviour?

Whatever it is, I feel a wave of moral panic that is going to hit us in the near future as more and more media attention is directed to kids playing video games.

Related Links

Cognitive Daily psychological research into violence and violent video games: http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2008/04/violent_video_games_and_desens.php

Mel Kheir’s CRIM2027 Blog: http://melcrim2027blog.blogspot.com

White, R. & Perrone, S. (2010). Crime, Criminality & Criminal Justice. Oxford University Press, New York.

Isn't the real problem here toy guns and rifles? For the past few years I've been seeing little kids with toy rifles! What are their guardians thinking?