Games = violence? Bah!

Within a few days, I saw computer games being blamed for violence in youth. First was about the cases in Singapore where a student slashed his professor before jumping to his death, and another student hanging himself. Second was about a German youth killing 16 others.

On the first case, a Singapore Facebook user said, "I thk we shld also start looking into the stress our kids have at home. this may includes parenting and society stress...exams...pressure. Restrict Violence Gaming is a MUST !"

On the second case, "The actual problem is violent computer games," says Georg Stiel, president of the club in Volksdorf.

"They mislead young ones, letting them shoot people and animals without being at risk themselves. I would have those games banned."

Shooting clubs, on the other hand, teach respect towards weapons as well as safety rules, gun law, discipline and patience, Mr Stiel says.

"Guns are our sports equipment. Of course they are weapons, but so are golf clubs, tennis rackets and broken bottles," he adds."

(Duh... I wonder if Mr Stiel has a choice, would he like to be hit by a golf club or a gun?)

Why computer games? Because the users are the powerless youths who can be easily lambasted, in comparison with the general adults that watched movies? Isn't TV a more widespread perpetrator of gun and violence? How about our national service (conscription to the army)? We learn how to shoot with a real gun.

My point is violence is violence, just because we could not understand our kids doesn't mean it is due to gaming. Finding a scape goat is to overlook the real issues here. We can eradicate 100 technologies that seemingly inculcated violence, but still not realize why are our kids angry.