Call of Duty and Other Violent Video Games

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Originally Posted by smelltheroses

I would never allow these violent video games... parents wonder why there are so many school shootings now a days... there are a lot of reasons... its hard when your childs friends play these games... but still I just wouldn't even want my child around friends like that period.

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This made me laugh out loud sorry.

First off its not so simple that omg violent games have led to more school shootings -blaming games is just a way to avoid looking at the whole picture including the parents lack of paying attention to the child and childs behavior becasue I am fairly sure kids have some sign of "off behavior" before shooting the school up

two have fun banning your kid from friends like that lol I can tell you my mom tried that with me as a teen and it led me to not talking to her about anything and leaving home at 15- banning kids just leaves them to seek out the banned item even more.

I think it is plausible that a violent video game could contribute to a child shooting up a school, but only in the sense that the child could become obsessed with it and immerse themselves in that
fake world and mindset. If that were the case though, I don't blame the game - I blame everyone who failed that child by not noticing that the game was becoming so all encompassing.
If your kid is that obsessed with something, you need to intervene.
If they confuse reality with their gaming world, you need to intervene. There are bigger mental health issues at play.

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Originally Posted by Ingalls

I think it is plausible that a violent video game could contribute to a child shooting up a school, but only in the sense that the child could become obsessed with it and immerse themselves in that

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It's a fact that first person shooting games DO create people that will hit the target / person more often - in WW1, WW2 and Vietnam they say that a majority of soldiers would shoot over the enemies head as instinct against killing another human being. Studies show that when first person shooting games were used in conjunction with other training that the soldiers would hit the target / person more often.

There is no correlation however, between video games and the tendency toward violence itself.

Update: We decided COD with zombies only would be alright, wth the condition that his younger brothers are not allowed in the room. We also kept a family lock on it so he needs to ask us when he wants to play that particular game. So far it's working well.

I think every family will have different opinions and feel differently as to when their kid would be ok playing violent games. It's only over the last year or so that we have let ds play (he turned 10 in June) as my dh plays (in the basement where the kids were banned if he was playing) and my ds loves strategy, he watches a lot of documentaries about WWII (who we have immediate family that fought in) and we talk about real violence v. game violence and that these things happen in real life. He doesn't have a huge amount of friends and the couple he hangs out with regularly play Halo mostly, they play Halo, Minecraft and Terraria, he doesn't play COD very often, but once in a while.

The idea that violent games/tv cause violence in kids seems pretty narrow minded, there is more to it then the games/shows, mental health, parental involvement, access to guns, etc.