Video games and its negative connotations within the media

Being someone who doesn't play games, I thought I'd share my view on society's views on video games and its impact on society.

It always strikes me as odd when society points their finger at video games or television whenever some incident happens. For example, the Columbine High School shootings in 1999 when two students shot 12 students and a teacher as well as injured 21 other students who tried to escape. It has been claimed that relatives of the students and teachers filed a lawsuit against 25 computer game companies and tried but failed to claim damages. These companies include Sega of America, Nintendo, AOL/TimeWarner, Atari and the like. Albeit unsuccessful, this still irks me that people are blaming video games for crimes for the sake of putting the blame on someone else.

Personally, I think that video games do expose violence to people/kids to some extent. But I agree with Kevin in the second lecture when he stated that it depends upon a number of factors such as education and the role that the parents play. However, all of this is ignored by people who don't understand video games and are thus unfamiliar with its content. Their claims reflect their ignorance and stupidity because it is simply not rational to use video games as the one reason for a murder. Ultimately, it depends on the individual and their judgment. It can be argued that the specific structure of that violent act may be impacted by Grand Theft Auto. However, the idea that they were a mentally healthy person, and then became a fanatical murderer after playing a video game is both ridiculous and laughable.

I think what society needs to do is to take into account the exposure of violence in general, such as those on the news or accept the fact that due to economy and politics, many countries and cities have become more volatile and susceptible to violence because of the dissatisfaction of living standards.