Video games again.

[colonel c]

The Telegraph said:

Children as young as four are re-enacting scenes from ultra-violent video games at school after being given free access to consoles in the home, according to teachers’ leaders.

full article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews...

Another 'sign of our times' video games rant.
However when I was a a youngster in the early sixties we would run around the playground imaginary machine guns reenacting war movies by pretending we were shooting at jerrys. When we got home we would play what we called 'The Murder Game' (a kind of hide and seek with toy guns). We bobby-trapped out hideout with dugout pits of muddy water covered over to catch out intruders and so on. Are kids so very different today?

[kelk]

Hey that's nothing - kids are watching Corrie these days and look where that gets them

[muffinmenace]

Is it the parents fault that 5 year olds are playing GTA yet or do we need a few more years to bring personal responsibility back?

[LukeBird]

Blame the easy part (the games) rather than tell parents that they aren't 'properly' raising their children...

[Jim the Sunderer]

I'd be a violent child if my mother didn't love me enough to buy me an HD telly.

[TheHeretic]

Jim the Sunderer said:

I'd be a violent child if my mother didn't love me enough to buy me an HD telly.

And she's sitting too close, it'll make her go blind, or something. And the TV is precariously balanced on the edge of a shelf thing. These parents need locking up.

[Negative Creep]

A yes, this old chestnut again. Remember when it was video nasties destroying our youth? Or heavy metal? or punk? Or Elvis' hips?

There's no denying that games have gotten more realistic and violent in recent years. In the 16bit days swearing as unheard of, and blood pretty rare. If I had young children I certainly wouldn't let them play the likes of Dead Space, Fallout or Gears of War, but the reason for that is the big "18" logo on the box. Always easier to blame someone else though isn't it?

[Gogoplata]

It makes you wonder about some people! The amount of times I've been in a games store and seen parents buying 18 rated games for their kids, I wonder if they buy them 18 rated films too?

It's easy for MP's & Journalists to blame media with adult content instead of the parents, especially the kind of people who lobby against violent video games.

[stevejh]

colonel c said:

However when I was a a youngster in the early sixties we would run around the playground imaginary machine guns reenacting war movies by pretending we were shooting at jerrys. When we got home we would play what we called 'The Murder Game' (a kind of hide and seek with toy guns). We bobby-trapped out hideout with dugout pits of muddy water covered over to catch out intruders and so on. Are kids so very different today?

We also used play 'war games' at school in the sixties. Running around making ridiculous machine gun noises as we pretended to shoot the Germans or we would be the Germans saying things like "gott in himmel herr leutenant" and "han de hoch", all stuff we'd read in our comics (anybody else remember War Picture Library and Battle Picture Library?). I'm sure all this would be terribly offensive if kids did it in the playground now but, as the cliche goes, it never did me any harm.

[Hoofy]

LukeBird said:

Blame the easy part (the games) rather than tell parents that they aren't 'properly' raising their children...

Indeed!