winch,
Quote: "He wasn't disputing the accuracy of the statistics but the conclusion drawn from them. All you can really conclude from the graph is the method used to measure the number of violent crimes shows a decrease in recent years."
That's what I meant, the method used to compile those statistics is pretty much exactly what is needed for the target we're talking about, isn't it? 12+, violent crimes, ranges from the beginning of Video Games to present, etc.
Matt,
I agree with your post... Mostly.
You keep coming back to the points about parents should be to blame for not knowing their kids well enough to stop them from being influenced by games and media, etc.
The problem in that is Parents aren't the only (physical) influence in a young developing childs life. There's a number of different sources such as Teachers in school, school friends, sports friends, weekend friends (possibly the same friend 3 times over
) as well as bully's in the school.
While, yes, parents should know their kids, who they hang out with and be their 'tutor' to show them how life should work, they can't control what the child thinks, nor who could influence them enough to give them unique thoughts, or a mixture (maybe messed up, maybe quite well-aligned).
I take myself as an example.
When I was young (5 - 14ish), I had a major problem with anger. All my life (as far as I could remember), I had thought like it, and had been that kind of person. Then, when I hit 14, I found different friends at school (one of my old friends left). Pretty quickly, I underwent a noticable change. My new friends were not the adrenaline pumping, fist throwing friends of my youth, but were more placid and into just talking, etc (the geek crowd
), so I started to be influenced by how they thought, what they did. Eventually, this lead to my anger subsiding, and me becomming a much more controlled person all-round. But until that point, I was very impressionable toward violence (addmitedly, I never played video games that much, and even if I did, I'm more than intelligent enough to know not to murder someone!)
Meanwhile, my mum is back home. She knows (sortof) the kids I hang around with at school, but since they were my 'school mates' (where I incidentally spent 35hrs a week) she had no idea what I was privvy to, or what my outside influences are/were. Outside of school, she did everything (mostly) just right - watched what I did, where I went, showed concern, encouraged me to do this and that, etc, but how could she know that I was doing at school, how I was thinking, and what opinions I was forming, or actions I was a part in?
Having said that, if my mother wasn't quite the person she is, if she was violent, or angry, etc, then I can see how I may have never made the transition from angry to placcid with a new group of friends.
But then, that comes back to their personal lives, and how
they were brought up - It's a vicious cycle that includes not one, but multitudes of outside influences to take into account when thinking about what may or may not effect the way a child perceives what is right and what is wrong.
... Just some food for thought
