Defending Video Games

First of all, you gotta know this about me. I'm a proud defender of video games as a valid form of entertainment and even art. Now, as with any new form of entertainment, it has had its share of opposition and criticism. People insist on showing studies of how video games make a child grow up into a violent and terrible person. I thought I turned out ok... Funny that the studies about how children who play video games have better motor skill development and higher IQs never made it to their desks. Oh well.

In the end, studies show what they want to show. Any scientist out to prove something will prove it if they want it bad enough. So maybe those scientists who found higher IQs in the kids who played video games were gamers themselves, who knows? Either way, it's a pattern of society. Something new comes along, and it's a fantastic opportunity to blame all of our problems on an inanimate object.

That's right. We love to blame our problems on inanimate objects, because it takes the responsibility off our shoulders. Video games only increase your tendencies for violence if you're exposed to violence as something normal before your mind has defined what is right or wrong, which begs a question. Why are children in their developmental stages allowed to play violent video games at all? There are PLENTY of other types of video games. Who is letting these children play those games? Oops, didn't mean to single you guys out. Right. Parents.

Now I'm not saying everything is the parent's fault, but for crying out loud, of course exposing children to violence in their formative years will increase their tendency toward violence, but that has nothing to do with the video game, it is their perception of reality. If their parents leave a 4 year old playing a mature rated game hour after hour so they don't have to take care of them, then that's the child's world. That violence starts to become their reality, and they see it as something normal, because they don't know any better. This is not the fault of the video game. Watching your parents fight all of the time has the same effect, why are all of the parents trying to discredit video games instead of going to marriage counseling? Again, it's easier to blame the inanimate object.

So in the end, video games are no more evil than books or television. Luckily for me, when I was younger, violent video games didn't exist, so my parents had no need to monitor the games I was playing. By the time violent video games emerged, I knew the difference between what was right and wrong, what was real and unreal. I started playing violent video games but it didn't matter, because the definition of acceptable and unacceptable was already formed in my mind. Parents have a much tougher task now should their children choose video games as a hobby, but no tougher than monitoring the TV shows or movies their children watch. It's common sense. Just as children can watch harmless movies or read harmless books, there's no problem with playing video games as long as they don't play anything above their maturity level. If you doubt the fact that "harmless" video games exists, I ask that you lookup the Nintendo Wii. You wanna talk family friendly, look no further.

No problem. Start them off on the Wii, and they can grow into other games as you and they desire. As far as what you'll allow in your home, that's another issue, but it applies to every kind of media, not just this one. Now I'm not a fan of outrageous violence or sexual content in video games, but I don't like those same things in books or movies either. Video games are just as much for adults as they are for children. No one brings law suits against Hollywood for putting violence and sex in their movies, but they do it to the video game industry. I think we should realize that it is the artist's right to put what they want in their art. So we need to stop pointing at the video games as a media and start worrying about what corner of that media our children experience, just like with other forms of accepted entertainment.