Videogames make kids fat and violent

[phnompehn]

I know this definately isn't the first time an article like this has been posted, but c'mon... That title is gold in itself. I mean, can you imagine a bunch of porkers running around killing hookers and stealing cars? Ahh, good times.

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http://money.cnn.com/2004/03/01/news/funny/violent_games.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes

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Videogames make kids fat and violent

Swedish study finds that violent computer games can lead to aggressiveness and even criminality.
March 1, 2004: 2:56 PM EST



STOCKHOLM, (Reuters) - Video games can make children fat and, in the case of violent games popular among teenage and younger boys, aggressive and even criminal, Swedish experts said Monday.

The games industry, estimated at $200 million a year in Sweden and $10 billion in the United States, is dominated on the hardware side by Microsoft's Xbox, Sony's PlayStation and Nintendo Co. Ltd's Game Boy and GameCube consoles.

Electronic Arts Inc., Nintendo, Activision Inc. and Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. are among leading games title publishers.

Take-Two's Rockstar unit's Grand Theft Auto -- a game condemned as "horrendous" by former U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful Joseph Lieberman -- is among titles mentioned by a Swedish television documentary in connection with violent youth crimes.

"It's concerning because they (video game players) are rehearsing scripts of behaviour that will possibly play themselves out in real life," Michael Rich, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics who has studied the effects of entertainment media on the physical and mental health of children, was quoted as saying in the 45-minute "Deadly Game" documentary.

Monday's preview of the film, due for prime time broadcasting on Swedish TV4 television on Wednesday, was followed by a panel debate, which concluded that scientific findings of the effects, if any, of violent video games were scant.

"But it has been proved beyond dispute that people who watch a lot of violence on television develop aggressive behaviour," said Frank Lindblad, a child psychiatrist at Sweden's Karolinska Institute university hospital.

Diffuse border
"They run a very high risk of criminal behaviour ... there's a lot suggesting that video games are worse," he said, noting that many players tended to identify themselves with game heroes.

"The border between the virtual reality and the real world becomes diffuse and that is dangerous," Lindblad said.

Gustav Niel-Berggren, a 16-year-old student who said he tended to spend many hours a day several days a week playing an interactive online action game called Counter-Strike, which focuses on killing opponent soldiers, disagreed.

"Shooting somebody in a game is just like scoring a goal in a football match," he said, dismissing the documentary's suggestion and Lindblad's fear that youths could not distinguish between the game world and real life.

Elisabeth Junttila, a mother of six and head of a nationwide association promoting closer ties between homes and schools, said some children became addicted to video games, spending all their waking hours in front of a computer screen gorging potato chips, pizza and soft drinks.

Anne Folke, co-founder of a lobby seeking to counteract through public awareness campaigns what it sees as the ill effects of video games, said games were consuming ever more of children's time.

"They are in poor physical shape, they eat unhealthily, grow fat and suffer insomnia," she said.

[davinxtk]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2003/20030811l.gif
Thank you, Penny Arcade.



I blame the parents. I grew up playing violent video games and watching violent movies, and there's nothing violent (or fat) about me.

Parents and politicans are attacking the videogame industry to try and get themselves off the fucking hook.

No dice, bitches.

[Zhukov]

Geez, even I have seen too much Penny Arcade. No more.



I'm not fat but I am violent.

[davinxtk]

I wouldn't have pasted it if it wasn't relevant.

I think it's ridiculous to assume that just because we play games about killing people that we're going to actually go out and kill people. These are pixels you're destroying, not lives.

Besides, getting ahold of a gun, going on a killing spree, out-running the cops, AND finding the badge to lower your wanted points is way too much effort in real life.
Right?

[AChimp]

I just blow myself up when it gets hopeless.

[davinxtk]

Eh, one time when I was stuck at a friend's house coming down from an aderall binge I got to thinking how cool it would be if I had saved a checkpoint in my bed, so I could just swan dive out the window and respawn at home.

[mesobe]

whoever blames video games and marilyn manson for their childrens problems (or potential problems) are irresponsible and worthless as parents.

[davinxtk]

Didn't I just cover that?

[El Blanco]

So, do videogames make violent kids, or do violent kids buy videogames?

And how is playing Grand Theft Auto different from playing cowboys and indians?

[KevinTheOmnivore]

pole dancers.

[davinxtk]

Ha. That depends on the girls you grew up with, Kevin.

[Emu]

Cowboys and indians at least usually gives them some physical exercise. However, I can't see how playing a game like that would stop them from being violent. "We caught a cowboy, let's scalp him!"

[DamnthatDavid]

All those idiots always blame video games for every little problem.
It's the music! It's the Video Games! It's the Movies and TV which are to blame!

Blame for what? That your child for the past year has gotten reclusive, and is possibly plotting your death, and the death of others? Maybe that smell of gunsmoke coming off their clothes is a hint that they are practcing using Firearms? Or the constant anger?

Why do people suddenly wig out? Could it not just be cause they are fucked up little shits that had easy acess to a weapon? And not a video game?

Games like GTA teach you nothing. I have yet to learn how to hijack cars, load and use weapons, and rise up in the criminal crime world.

[Perndog]

Fat and violent kids make video games. :hat

[phnompehn]

The only useful information I've ever learned from a video game, was from America's Army (developed and produced by the U.S. Army, funded by tax-payers). Really a pretty graphic and violent game, but no one blames them, right?

Oh yeah, and Pitfall taught me how to avoid scorpions and jump on crocodile heads. Very useful.

[Emu]

I learned how to recognize simple shapes on my Sesame Street game. Bitches.

[Bobo Adobo]

whoever blames video games and marilyn manson for their childrens problems (or potential problems) are irresponsible and worthless as parents.

I would blame Marilyn Manson. Whenever I listen to him I want to kill him and every american goth kid who listens to that crappola. But nobody really listens to him, they just think they identify with that attention whore.

Japan has the most morbid, violent and desturbing media that exists. Yet the amount of violence in their society is almost non-existant... makes ya think doesn't it?

[phnompehn]

Reading this thread is like watching BFC all over again! Maybe next, we'll go to Canada and check to see if people lock their doors.

Americans are nervous, scared, violent crazies. We shoot each other and then sit back and wonder "Why? Why did this have to happen, and why isn't anyone thinking of the children?!"


Then we move on and develop a suburb or maybe build a mall.

[El Blanco]

People act like these school shootings happen every other day. They aren't. The fact that we are so shocked and react so overdramatically shows that these are rare occurances.

Spousal abuse is far more common, but no one wants to ban Monday Night Football (not that I think its related, I'm just using an easy stereotype to make my point).

[Emu]

It's no wonder we're paranoid, with all the Communists breathing down our necks.

[DamnthatDavid]

Like phnompehn mentioned.
This is starting to sound a hellva lot like BFC, and I agree with many points in that movie.

The U.S. needs scapegoats, needs, drama, and needs fear.

We have had major problems as a country. Editing History to fit our views, ingnoring the problems. Turning the blind eye, and taking the easy way out.
This build up until something snaps.
We caused the problems in Afghanastan, and to lesser extent, Iraq.
Warlords, and Saddam's regieme used this to gain power. To focus general hate against one target. To lessar extent it is happening all over the world. And even we, as a country do it to ourselves.
We blame the biggest target, the Media industry, just like all those other counties blame us.

[Bobo Adobo]

It's no wonder we're paranoid, with all the Communists breathing down our necks.

I watched the "Atomic Cafe", and theres this part where I think its Nixon and Kruschev talking...

and Kruschev said to Nixon "Only think Americans know about communism is to fear it." And than Nixon just stood there with a puzzled look on his face. I just thought that was funny...

[davinxtk]

The only useful information I've ever learned from a video game, was from America's Army (developed and produced by the U.S. Army, funded by tax-payers). Really a pretty graphic and violent game, but no one blames them, right?

Graphic my ass. There's a puff of blood when you shoot someone. Nothing more.
And, finally my tax money went to something I enjoyed.

I would blame Marilyn Manson...think they identify with that attention whore.
*cough*
I wouldn't call him an attention whore. More of a calculated and written character marketed to rejects.
The man himself is actually a fairly conservative republican :rolleyes

[phnompehn]

The only useful information I've ever learned from a video game, was from America's Army (developed and produced by the U.S. Army, funded by tax-payers). Really a pretty graphic and violent game, but no one blames them, right?

Graphic my ass. There's a puff of blood when you shoot someone. Nothing more.
And, finally my tax money went to something I enjoyed.



Ok, ok, it's really not all that violent. My point is that so many right-wing christians complain about violent video games, when their very own military is producing them with tax dollars.

And what's up with those Haitians over in Miami complaining about the "Kill all the Haitians" line in GTA? I can't believe Rockstar actually apologized for it.

[phnompehn]

Here it is. Didn't realize it was so old.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/fun.games/01/01/videogame.suit.ap/index.html
-------------------------------------------

Suit seeks to ban sales of popular video game
Thursday, January 1, 2004 Posted: 10:44 PM EST (0344 GMT)
Haitian community representatives say "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" incites hate crimes.


WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (AP) -- A lawsuit by Haitian groups that asks for the top-selling video game "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" to be removed from store shelves will be decided in federal court.

Haitian civil rights groups filed the lawsuit because the game instructs players to "kill the Haitians" and awards points for each kill.

The suit was filed December 23 in state circuit court in Palm Beach County. Attorneys for Rockstar Games Inc. opted to move the case to federal court, and that motion was granted Tuesday. No hearing dates were immediately set.

New York-based Rockstar Games has agreed to remove the offensive line from future versions of the award-winning video game that has sold 11 million copies.

But the Haitian organizations, led by the Haitian-American Coalition of Palm Beach County, have also asked for more than $15,000 in damages.

The lawsuit takes on heavyweights in the video game industry, including Rockstar Games, its parent company Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., Sony Computer Entertainment, the Microsoft Corp., and retailers Target, Wal-Mart and Best Buy.

The manufacturer of the game, in which an ex-convict is hired to recover stolen drug money in the streets of Miami, has been harshly criticized for its portrayal of Haitians.

Earlier this month, about 100 Haitian-Americans demonstrated outside a Wal-Mart Supercenter in nearby Boynton Beach chanting, "Stop Vice City."

Attorneys for the Haitian organizations and the video game manufacturer did not return phone calls late Wednesday.

[MrAdventure]

borka borka borka rehashing shit bork bork americans have tried to get abork away with abork bork saying for bork bork ages now

[Supafly345]

What a waste of time this thread is.

[phnompehn]

Well, I knew how much your existence has in common with wastes of time, so I thought you'd love it.

[davinxtk]

They apologized for it because they're already in enough hot water over the violent content of the videogame, they didn't need someone calling them racists.

I didn't read your article, but whatever group of Hatians complained about it needs to realize that by associating themselves with, quite literally, the street gang in the video game they discredit their argument entirely :)

[ArrowX]

repeated Exposure DESENSITISES us. It doesn't make us walk into the street steal a sportscar then pick up some hookers and kill police! all it does is makes us not guve a damn thats all.

[Anonymous]

How come you never see anything like, "The President of Rockstar Games, when asked for comment, forcefully gripped his abdomen and cackled until a co-worker calmed him with a few pats on the back and a glass of water."

[davinxtk]

repeated Exposure DESENSITISES us. It doesn't make us walk into the street steal a sportscar then pick up some hookers and kill police! all it does is makes us not guve a damn thats all.
I didn't give a damn in the first place.
In fact, after reading your post, I care even less. If that was possible.

How come you never see anything like, "The President of Rockstar Games, when asked for comment, forcefully gripped his abdomen and cackled until a co-worker calmed him with a few pats on the back and a glass of water."
Because for some reason video game companies pretend to give a shit about public opinion. I'd be all over the cackling scene.

[mesobe]

"video" and "game".

a "video" is a series of moving pictures to give the illusion of animation and "game" is a pretend fun thing.

I was under the assumption that humans were the smartest animal on the planet...

[AChimp]

My psych professor in the summer talked about this and laughed at all the fringe lunatics that claim without a doubt that violence on TV and in games causes violence in people.

See, there's two kinds of relationships between two variables: causal and correlational. With causal, you can definitively say that A caused a change in B. With correlational, you can only say that when you change A, there appears to be an effect on B, but there are extraneous variables so you can't make any conclusion without being laughed at by everyone else. You actually get mad props in the scientific community for admitting that you couldn't come up with anything.

Maybe violent kids are attracted to violent video games and play them more than other people? HAHA THE TABLES HAVE TURNED. >:

[mesobe]

yeah no shit... your taste in music, TV and games doesnt create your behavior... its the other way around.

"man, I really want to kill a cop and rape someone.... if I could *just* find the right music and video game to get me in the mood!"

[Rongi]

I'm with Mr.Adventure. This thread sucks.

It's not like any of you have any kids of your own. So if none of this shit effects you, why even talk about it?

[mesobe]

why talk about anything?

its a fucking forum. what the hell else are we suppose to do?

[Helm]

You're supposed to shut the fuck up, mesobe.

Thank you.

[mesobe]

or bitch about how every thread sucks.

[Helm]

no, shut the fuck up. Do you understand? Shut, the fuck, up.

[mesobe]

blah blah blah blah