The effects of violent video games

Callous response.

There is plenty of evidence that many young people are adopting callous attitudes. This is what they have learnt from watching violence in reality or in fantasy, unless the action shown is compassionate.

Terrible pictures of car accidents can frighten innocent viewers, but those sophisticated into watching blood sports or even just frequent watching can enjoy them with a frisson of horror. Those who have a twist to self-destruction can also see in them a way to encourage them.

Pornographic pedophilia does not make active pedophiliacs of those not predisposed to be pedophiliac but 'normal' pornography can teach ways of sexual behavior that cut out making love.

Desensitization

from watching violence can occur from three sources:

Psychiatric studies of the effects of watching early violence by children are provided inThe Child in his family: perilous development: Child raising and identity formation under stress. Vol 8. 1988 John Wiley & Sons. Ed E J Antony & Colette Chlland.

It is shocking that so much violence and crime in real life is first presaged in film, books and even in comic strips as entertainment. American films go all over the world - teaching violence. And violence as the solution.

Enormous sums are spent on research to show whether children hit Bobo dolls after witnessing violence - without observing whether America has been becoming a more violent society as the children grow up. Domestic rage, road rage, computer rage, airline rage . . all sorts of rage are analysed separately, as they increase in our society, but common factors to them all are ignored.

Catharsis.

Simulated cruelty and watching cruelty as entertainment is justified as good for the personality, making it more unlikely to be carried out in real life. Freud has been interpreted as saying that inhibition and self-control is unhealthy, and leads to neurosis. It is claimed that it is healthy to be uninhibited and freely express all feelings of any sort, whatever they are. This is not what Freud actually thought .What he said was that it is impossible to have a civilisation unless there was some degree of neurosis and inhibition, so that people were reasonably decent to each other. This means that to be civilised must also involve some personal unhappiness for the sake of the whole society (Civilisation and its Discontents)/

A modern interpretation of 'catharsis' is that it is 'healthy' to burst out with angry and negative feelings whenever you feel like it, to give your emotions an 'outlet'. It is 'healthy' to watch aggressive and violent entertainment, as 'outlets', because the psyche of humans is rather like a plumbing system, and if aggressive feelings are dammed up, we will explode more dangerously sooner or later.

However, the old Greek idea of catharsis, worked out by Aristotle, was that classical tragedy was justified because of its healing powers. The audience was emotionally purged by feelings of pity and terror at witnessing the sufferings of noble heroes brought about by their tragic flaws. This was'catharsis'.Freud's modern theory of catharsis through expressing feelings and thoughts that have been long buried in the unconscious, has since been greatly exaggerated. It can be like lancing an abscess for someone to come out with what has been suppressed or repressed at great emotional cost - but to keep on coming out with it is like stirring round in the open wound, preventing it from healing.

Patricks collection of 30 things what you learn about life and how to live in it from horror filems. The more you watch them, the more likely the balace to tip for their lessons.

A 'Horror Movie Character's Survival Guide, I wanna live' has been going around the Internet among teenagers since mid-1999. It lists 870 messages about how you should behave in order to survive. These 870 messages can be classified into 15 categories. Only six small categories are not anti-social - Use commonsense, Listen to warnings, Avoid superstitious and satanic practices, People driven by veangance always die, Never do anything morally wrong such as pre-marital sex, drugs, making fun of the hero/heroine, etc...., Don't become an evil scientist. You will be killed by your creation when it goes awry.