Ah, sorry, should have made clear that I was commenting to the line from gabrielvox's post on the previous page
gabrielvox said:
What's next, we say that video games depicting raping and mutilating women or explicit sexual activities don't have an effect on kids because we didn't all become bricklayers as a direct result of our Tetris obssesion? Cmon!!
Now I see that we got our wires crossed a bit.
While you were referring to the findings that children are influenced by the media, which I agree on generally, I was more talking about findings on teenagers or adults.
Of course, children that play those games are very likely to be affected by these games, or movies, as they are not able to see this as fiction. Although, like I said, as a young child I started to play these games, and didn't turn out bad
I strongly agree that parents have to be very conscious about what they let their children play or watch, and that it very easily can have a negative effect to the childs development.
I think there are enough games out for younger children, so Ithink parents sghould behave more responsible when they buy something for their children. And as said often they have to say no at times.
Violent games and movies are not for children, and that is why there are restrictions and maturity ratings for media.
It can't be that hard for a parent to see the rating on those games. Here for example it's a big sign reading the age, like 16, and everybody knows that it means that this game is not made for people under age 16. When parents still let their kids play this game they can't blame the producer of the game. When they simply not care about their children they can't demand the government to ban these games.
And in fact, more and more gamers are age 20 and older. They matured as the games did.