timmah said:
pokoko said:
timmah said:
It's not meaningless at all. If somebody has a predisposition to violent behavior, then violent media of any kind can certainly exacerbate the problem by feeding the violent mindset with fantasy, which then becomes 'reality' for the disturbed individual. You also need to understand the difference between a movie (where you just watch the violence) and a game (where you actually cause the violence to happen on screen), this is a huge difference to the mind of an individual who has difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality. This type of media has a substantially different effect on a disturbed mind than it does on your mind.
Even if it is not the cause of the problem in this case, it could be one of the pieces of the puzzle. The reason they're looking specifically at the violent games is, he had a whole lot of them. If he had a massive library of violent movies and few or no games, I'm assuming they would be looking for a link to the movies.
There is no case to be made for banning violent games, but more research and awareness might lead parents of similar children to keep them away from such media, be it games, movies, books, whatever.
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I'm going to need some research links for that, please, as I believe the exact opposite. Sounds a lot like the Dungeons & Dragons bunk from a few decades ago. Watching fake people die in videogames has never, ever affected me in near the same way as watching real human beings realisitcally depict death in films. Not even close. I think violent films are far more potentially damaging to children--not that they should necessarily have access to either, of course.
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I agree with you as this applies to most cases. Keep in mind, you're going based on how these things affect you, but I'm talking about how it affects people with a certain combination of mental ailments. Asbergers is not usually associated with violent tendencies (in fact, it very rarely is), but some (very few) people with asbergers or autism also suffer from other mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder, an inability or decreased ability to feel physical/emotional pain (I don't remember what that's called), and inability to distinguish fantasy from reality, or even psychosis. It is very, very rare for Asbergers or Autism to be associated with violence, but in those rare cases where some autism spectrum disorder is also present with other disorders, specifically resulting in violent tendencies, THAT is the very specific, rare case where violent media (especially video games) can be problematic.
My brother works at a facility that treats people with autism spectrum disorders, and the most violent cases he sees are commonly addicted to violent video games (and I mean, really, really addicted). They also tend to have parents who coddle them & give them whatever they want, so that may be part of it as well. Removing the access to violent media, as well as changing the parental dynamic usually results in a very positive change over the next year of treatment.
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