This comment is by Dan on the post “Acts of Valor and Acts of Violence“.
I think the bigger issue here is not what young men watch for entertainments sake, but the way they are taught to resolve conflict and express pain.
If male video game players were shooting up schools and then saying things like “Well the games got boring, and I had to get my kicks somehow…” then there might be an argument that violent entertainment (and video games in particular) were somehow related to real life violence.
The facts are however, that most school shootings perpetrators have been systematically hurt – socially, emotionally, or physically – and have found no protection from the systems/institutions that are suppose to (school, mentors, parents, etc.).
Simultaneously, we teach them “Big boys don’t cry”, “Don’t get mad, get even”, “Be a man and solve the problem yourself”. We teach that men solve problems with violence, that men protect themselves and their friends with violence, that men Right the Worlds Wrongs with violence.
The only link I could imagine between Act of Valor and this incident presents itself in this final category. Boys and young men watch the news, watch movies, and read newspapers; they see our countries leaders proclaiming things like “Osama attacked our country, he committed a wrong against us, for that we will kill him.” They see op-eds explaining “Saddam Hussein is a terrible dictator. He oppresses his people. And for that he will die.” They observe the death penalty and observe they same “final punishment”.
Our society reinforces the notion that transgression shall be met with punishment, and that ultimate transgression is met with death, the ultimate punishment. We glorify Seal Team 6, laude all our men and women in uniform, and then wonder why kids get the message that killing is ok sometimes, and that Bad People deserve to die.
As with every school shooting, instead of asking “what prompted this absurd act of violence?” and then externalizing it and blaming faceless constructs like Movies and Video Games I think we should ask harder questions like, “where was this child’s support structures?” or “who was there to talk with him?” or “Why does our society praise violence?”
An apt exerpt from Bowling for Columbine:
Michael Moore: “If you were to talk directly to the kids at Columbine…what would you say to them if they were here right now?
Marylin Manson: I wouldn’t say a single word to them. I would listen to what they have to say, and that’s what no one did.
About the Editors
Damn straight.
You can’t expect to leave folks with no proper support system and then get upset when they act out in improper ways.
Support system? Warren Farrel tried that but Obama’s feminist leanings didn’t allow it.
Perhaps instead of pointing fingers at masculinity for the violence men do, we should point fingers at the violence done to them.
Consider this correlation:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/watching-spongebob-makes-preschoolers-slower-thinkers-study-finds/story?id=14482447
Watching SpongeBob Squarepants Makes Preschoolers Slower Thinkers, Study Finds
He may be one of the longest-running, best-loved cartoons in Nickelodeon history, but SpongeBob SquarePants is getting no love from child psychologists.
According to research published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, watching fast-paced cartoons like SpongeBob, even for just a few minutes, hinders abstract thinking, short-term memory and impulse control in preschoolers.
Led by University of Virginia psychologist Angeline Lillard, researchers randomly assigned 60 four-year-olds to three activities: drawing freely with markers for nine minutes; watching a slower-paced, PBS cartoon for that time; or watching SpongeBob SquarePants. Researchers chose SpongeBob for its frenetic pace: The show switches scenes on average every 11 seconds, as compared with the PBS cartoon, which switched only twice a minute.
Afterward the preschoolers were asked to do four different “executive function” tasks that test cognitive capability and impulse control, such as counting backwards, solving puzzles, and delaying gratification by waiting to eat a tasty snack until told to do so. Compared with those who were drawing and those watching PBS, the SpongeBob kids performed significantly worse on the tasks.
Study authors note that it’s hard to say what it was about the adventures of this friendly kitchen sponge that seemed to have such an immediate negative effect on kids, but they suspected it was the fantastical events and rapid pacing of the show. By contrast, the PBS show was slower and exhibited real life events about a preschool-age boy.
Parents and pediatricians have often commented that the frenzied pace of many kids’ cartoons today make kids distracted and kill their attention spans.
“This is something we have known for quite sometime, but this is elegant research that puts science behind what we think,” says Dr. David Rosenberg, chief of child psychiatry and psychology at Wayne State University.
The blame shouldn’t fall exclusively on the square shoulders of his kindly sea sponge. All fast-paced, fantastical kids’ shows are called into question.
Nickleodeon, the makers of SpongeBob, defended the cartoon, pointing out that the study looked only at white middle- to upper-class kids. The study subjects were also only four, two years younger than the target SpongeBob audience.
“Having 60 non-diverse kids, who are not part of the show’s targeted demo, watch nine minutes of programming is questionable methodology. It could not possibly provide the basis for any valid findings that parents could trust,” David Bittler, a representative for Nickleodeon, told ABC News.
A Multimedia Childhood
In a world where the average kid is plugged into some kind of media, be it the internet, smart phone, video games or TV for up to eight hours a day, the negative impact of all this media multitasking on young brains has become a hot topic for debate.
Many pediatricians and psychologists fear that the rapid oscillating between different stimuli will make kids unable to focus, especially when they start juggling listening to music, playing a video game and texting on their cellphone at the tender age of five.
“From what we know about children’s neurodevelopment, the early years are truly formative. The concern is that TV is unnatural; it happens at a speed that’s unachievable in the real world. Our brains didn’t evolve to process things that happen at this surreal speed, so it becomes exhausting to kids’ brains,” says Dr. Dimitri Christakis, director of the center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children’s Hospital. Christakis wrote a commentary on the study, also published on Monday.
Those on the other side of the debate argue that all this multi-tasking is preparing kids for the internet-driven world they will inherit, teaching them how to inherently juggle media in the way that many in the working world today have had to train themselves to do.
Too Plugged In?
While multitasking has its benefits, this study and others are offering evidence that these short attention spans are hindering children more than they help them.
“There’s no question that there’s a downside to having deficits in executive function, these are skills everyone should have,” says Christakis.
“The interesting thing was that the deficits were seen with one type of programming and not the other. It’s not that all television rots the brain and makes kids stupid,” he says.
SpongeBob Comes Under Fire Watch Video
SpongeBob: A Bad Influence on Kids? Watch Video
Cartoon Food Watch Video
In a world where limiting kids’ access to media is a constant battle, “the good news is that it seems only certain kinds of programming is detrimental. For those parents focusing on the quantity of TV watching only, they need to know that it’s not always about turning off the TV, it’s about changing the channel.”
Putting reasonable limitations on hours spent watching TV is of course also important, notes Rosenberg. Parents need to “closely supervise” their child’s TV habits and “look for other opportunities to ‘exercise kids synapses’,” with engaging activities like reading, playing outside and engaging with others.
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… ok. So watching a fast paced show *may* temporarily hurt your attention span. Based on a study of 60 children.
What does this have to do with games causing violence? Do you think the colombine kids killed half of their school because they couldn’t count backwards or refrain from eating a marshmallow?
Why did you repost the entire article?
Figure out the answers to your mocking questions, yourself. I have better use of my time.
Believe whatever you want to believe, it’s your prerogative.
Support systems are very important. Participating in violent video games and whatnot is not without problems. Kids are influenced by music and so no doubt would be influenced by video games to a certain extent; depends on individuals.
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These same arguments were used to show how jazz music causes alcoholism and rock n’ roll lead to premarital sex.
Michelle
Possible that shooter games actually use up some aggression.
Hard to tell about these things, which is why the argument goes on.