mountain_tiger
Smash Champion
Link to original post: [drupal=3257]Children and "violent" games[/drupal]
A couple of weeks ago, I was down at my aunt and uncle's house, and it was basically a family get-together. As they were all talking in the other room, I was given the job of entertaining my cousin and cousin once removed (aged nine and seven respectively), which turned out to be very easy, because they were simply playing Stair Dismount on their iPod Touches. If you haven't played it before, basically the goal is to push the stickman down the stairs and cause as much pain as possible. No gore or anything; it's just a grey doll.
Anyway, they weren't too happy with this, claiming that it encouraged him that causing people suffering was good, and removed it from his iTouch. The thing is, I really don't think it was causing him any psychological harm. Provided you're able to tell the difference between reality and fantasy, there's nothing wrong with playing such games. People tend to think of children as being more gullible than they actually are. He's pretty smart for his age, and I'm pretty sure he knows it's wrong to push people down stairs. I've been playing fighting games since I was eight, and I never went round beating people up...
What I found perplexing was that despite them objecting to him playing Stair Dismount, they had no problem with letting him play Tekken, which contains much more violence and intent to hurt people than Stair Dismount does... Maybe the fact it had silly characters like kangaroos and pandas had something to with it, but then they'd think that would be child cruelty...
Obviously there should be a limit to these things, and at the end of the day it's the parents' decision. But if a game contains comic violence and doesn't have gore or swearing or the like, I don't see what the problem is. It's no worse than the stuff you see in, for example, Tom and Jerry. Take a look at this cartoon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-nnoNgwY3k
Skip to 3:20. There'd be a huge outcry if a cartoon like that was made for kids nowadays (and in fact the offending scene is often cut nowadays) but at the time people had no qualms with it...
Do you think that children are influenced as much by games involving pain as some parents seem to think? It just seems like over-protectiveness IMO.
A couple of weeks ago, I was down at my aunt and uncle's house, and it was basically a family get-together. As they were all talking in the other room, I was given the job of entertaining my cousin and cousin once removed (aged nine and seven respectively), which turned out to be very easy, because they were simply playing Stair Dismount on their iPod Touches. If you haven't played it before, basically the goal is to push the stickman down the stairs and cause as much pain as possible. No gore or anything; it's just a grey doll.
Anyway, they weren't too happy with this, claiming that it encouraged him that causing people suffering was good, and removed it from his iTouch. The thing is, I really don't think it was causing him any psychological harm. Provided you're able to tell the difference between reality and fantasy, there's nothing wrong with playing such games. People tend to think of children as being more gullible than they actually are. He's pretty smart for his age, and I'm pretty sure he knows it's wrong to push people down stairs. I've been playing fighting games since I was eight, and I never went round beating people up...
What I found perplexing was that despite them objecting to him playing Stair Dismount, they had no problem with letting him play Tekken, which contains much more violence and intent to hurt people than Stair Dismount does... Maybe the fact it had silly characters like kangaroos and pandas had something to with it, but then they'd think that would be child cruelty...
Obviously there should be a limit to these things, and at the end of the day it's the parents' decision. But if a game contains comic violence and doesn't have gore or swearing or the like, I don't see what the problem is. It's no worse than the stuff you see in, for example, Tom and Jerry. Take a look at this cartoon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-nnoNgwY3k
Skip to 3:20. There'd be a huge outcry if a cartoon like that was made for kids nowadays (and in fact the offending scene is often cut nowadays) but at the time people had no qualms with it...
Do you think that children are influenced as much by games involving pain as some parents seem to think? It just seems like over-protectiveness IMO.
