77% of 1,050 Parents Believe Games Cause Violence as Much as Guns Do

[Shawn Zipay]

In a survey of 1,050 parents with children 18 years or younger, 77% believed that violent media are just as much to blame as guns when it comes to the causes of violence. This survey was conducted by Common Sense Media, a parent watchdog organization.

88% of those surveyed said that they wanted ads for violent games, TV shows, and films to be prevented from showing during shows that hold large audiences. 91% of those surveyed would prefer that theaters did not show trailers for films that were rated higher than the film they were presently there to see.

Parents are clearly concerned about how violence in media may be impacting their children,' said Common Sense Media chief executive James Steyer. 'Our culture of violence seems to have made it the new normal that parents who take their kids to a movie theater or gather to watch a football game are at risk of exposing them to inappropriate content that is marketing video games or films rated for more mature audiences.'

One small beacon of hope came when 75% of those surveyed said they were equally concerned that easy access to guns as a contributing factor to violence in the States.

And the positive news for gamers just keeps on coming.

(via BitGamer)

[CptainCrunch]

I believe that video games make people as violent as people having guns. My belief is at 0%.

But please, don't let me stop you for blaming make believe fantasy worlds and inanimate objects on violence when in fact its parents that refuse to parent and let the console/PC baby sit as well as the irresponsible gun owner that will not properly teach their children firearm safety and handling nor get a safe to lock them up. Or teach them that games are not real and that actually doing anything close to what is in them may cause injury or death.

Its obviously the fault of these games and guns and not peer pressure, parents, or the individual. I mean, who can afford a good quality safe when buying all these guns and video games? Video games aren't getting any cheaper! How are parents suppose to see what theyre kids are doing when the console is in the living room using the main tv? I mean, we are asking too much.

Dont even get me started with that "swing" music and dancing.

[Lil'Ruff]

77% of 1050 parents are retarded. Some people need to stop blaming the media and start blaming themselves.

[Linux]

77% of 1050 parents are retarded. Some people need to stop blaming the media and start blaming themselves.

I fully agree with your statement, but in today's society we find it so much easier to point the blame at someone or something else than taking responsibly for our own actions. We are all guilty of doing this whether you know it or not we all have blamed something else for something that we could control ourselves. Keep also in mind that when someone surveyed they are pulling a lot of bullshit statistics from their survey which has little to no weight because it is all opinion based. Until the true facts are studies and proven the argument of games causing violence is going to be a trivial topic that is going to have a lot of opinion and feeling rather than facts and studies in it.

A good example that I remember reading or hearing about is that buying and playing a game is an emotional thing for humans. Take for example that someone who is given the choice between buying a $60 game and paying for their car insurance will more than likely go with buying the game because they get more pleasure out of that than paying for car insurance. Right there is an emotion choice being done that the only factor that comes into play is that the game gives a person more emotional pleasure than paying for car insurance or if you want for anything else for that matter when it generally comes to money.

[K-16]

Bottom line (shorter than tl;dr): Mr. Krahulik's post from 2007 involving a loving step-parent's perspective sums up everything on my mind.

tl;dr: It's odd how the survey Common Sense Media released contradicts their attempts of being an independent voice to society for families, because their goals and beliefs are quite similar to our's. And yet they collect only a day's worth of data from only 1,050 parents representing 50 states (census 2010 shows 35,218,000 families with children under 18 years of age) who answer what I see to be loaded questions... With that said, if we want to shift the blame to parents then we need to prove parents can build bridges of communication with their children simply by expressing intent of responsibility as a parent.

I'm more convinced the majority of cases are children being unresponsive to parents even if the parents wish to responsibly moderate their children appropriately. I've seen too many news articles of responsible parents being attacked or murdered because their child had their game/console taken away. While legally insane children such as my previous example reached the point of no return, do we have any suggestions on how to break the wall between parents and children and build the bridge of communication to teach sane children how to adapt to violence that exists in society? If we can propose a set of standards on what constitutes good parenting and how to do it, then perhaps gamers and advocates of overregulation of free speech will stop being at each other's throats.

[spoiler=Full Version (Be warned: It's Over 850 Words)]I believe what we need to do as gamers is to set an example of how to improve society, or better yet, lead by example. We should also come up with suggestions and proposals (with other parents who are preferably NOT gamers) on a set of standards of how to communicate with children. We can blame bad parenting all we want, but being on the other extreme end doesn't give us more credibility than parents and the mass media. Just the opposite, we have done nothing to help understand their end and to work towards their needs.

Here's the problem. I have yet to see anybody within the gaming industry/community (myself included) offer any kind of suggestions as to how to communicate with children if the children are unresponsive to their parents. If the children refuse to listen and turn to games because games are not judgemental boring lectures, then perhaps the media is a "second parent" after all. So how does a parent regain control before the $#!+ hits the fan? I know I've read countless stories about parents being attacked or murdered by their children BECAUSE they tried to be responsible (like take away the console/game as a temporary punishment). This is a problem we need to be involved in and work with non-gaming parents to solve, if we want to end the blaming wars and keep video games free from overregulation.

We've already done the first step, which is prove our passion to change society's perception of gamers. Child's Play Charity's success has reached the mass media (if they only care about successful statistics, then fine, compare Child's Play to just about ANY OTHER charity in the same timeframe). Over $17 million in a decade, for what reason? Well, partially to help children's morale as they adapt into their hospital life, but also partially as a publicity stunt. It IS a publicity stunt to make us look good, but damn it I can not be more proud of this non-profit organization. So first step done. When will we do the second step towards raising awareness of improving communications between parent and child? If we want to counter the awareness raising of violence in media, then we need to raise awareness of communication issues and how to fix them! Problem is, I'm more knowledgable in teabagging in first-person shooters than talking to unresponsive children so I fail at life and have no suggestions. So who in the gaming community is mature enough to step up to the plate and carry our overall campaign to step 2?

Anyways speaking of bull$#!+ statistics, it appears the survey asks a lot of loaded questions. My favorite is "The policies of both the TV networks and the alcohol industry prevent advertising for alcoholic beverages from airing during programs viewed by large numbers of children. Should similar policies also apply to advertising for violent video games and violent movies when children are watching? [Yes/No/Not Sure]" I do find that question incredibly rigged to prevent anyone from saying no without looking irresponsible.

Here's another quirky tidbit from the survey unmentioned in the summary report: "Is the violence in today's video games a major problem? A minor problem? Or not a problem at all?" Results? Only 45% say it's a major problem, 44% say it's a minor problem, 8% say it's not a problem, and 2% are not sure. The objective of this survey is to imply violence in media, and access to weapons needs to be controlled, in order to reduce the overall violence in society. By directing this survey to parents, we recognize the problem is the difficulty parents go through to moderate their children. Apparently the only thing parents have tried is to shield them from violence altogether, which is obviously difficult as 787 parents in 50 states have attested to, but the survey uses this as their basis that parenting is not sufficient without additional regulation on violent media and access to weapons. Interesting how the survey only talks about supervision of children in relation to shielding them from violence, rather than supervision of children in relation to helping them adapt to violence appropriately. Here's another unmentioned favorite of mine: "Does the current system of movie and video game ratings allow parents to make informed decisions about violent content?" 68% yes, 23% no, 9% not sure. Well done ESRB.

My final thoughts are as follows. We are as responsible as the idiots in the world who fail to understand how to control violence. The answer is we can't. We can only adapt to violence and put forth a generation of individuals who can lead by example on how to be peaceful, yet support free speech of violence in media. Understand the difference between teabagging, and rape/harassment/sexism. Know screaming "BOOM! HEADSHOT!" is a viral reference to FPS Doug, yet also know that there are soldiers who suffer PTSD and commit suicide after coming home, because they saw humans killing humans regardless of political allegiance. We need to help parents build bridges with their children. Oh and one more thing, this survey involves 1,050 parents with children 18 years or younger from 50 states with its data collected from January 4th to January 5th of 2013... THAT'S A SINGLE ****ING DAY OF RECEIVING ANSWERS TO LOADED QUESTIONS! Real independent... At least their target is violent media and weapons, and not so much focused solely on video games. I'm terrified at how badly my post will break the site if anyone hits this spoiler button. I must apologize, but this topic rubs me the wrong way so I had even more to say than usual, and we all know how ****ing long-winded I already am.[/spoiler]

[The_Eliminator]

"Children 18 years or younger".

The real problem is these children are probably playing violent games aimed at an audience of 18 years or older.

[Koin-Koin]

Bottom line (shorter than tl;dr): Mr. Krahulik's post from 2007 involving a loving step-parent's perspective sums up everything on my mind.

tl;dr: It's odd how the survey Common Sense Media released contradicts their attempts of being an independent voice to society for families, because their goals and beliefs are quite similar to our's. And yet they collect only a day's worth of data from only 1,050 parents representing 50 states (census 2010 shows 35,218,000 families with children under 18 years of age) who answer what I see to be loaded questions... With that said, if we want to shift the blame to parents then we need to prove parents can build bridges of communication with their children simply by expressing intent of responsibility as a parent.

I'm more convinced the majority of cases are children being unresponsive to parents even if the parents wish to responsibly moderate their children appropriately. I've seen too many news articles of responsible parents being attacked or murdered because their child had their game/console taken away. While legally insane children such as my previous example reached the point of no return, do we have any suggestions on how to break the wall between parents and children and build the bridge of communication to teach sane children how to adapt to violence that exists in society? If we can propose a set of standards on what constitutes good parenting and how to do it, then perhaps gamers and advocates of overregulation of free speech will stop being at each other's throats.

[spoiler=Full Version (Be warned: It's Over 850 Words)]I believe what we need to do as gamers is to set an example of how to improve society, or better yet, lead by example. We should also come up with suggestions and proposals (with other parents who are preferably NOT gamers) on a set of standards of how to communicate with children. We can blame bad parenting all we want, but being on the other extreme end doesn't give us more credibility than parents and the mass media. Just the opposite, we have done nothing to help understand their end and to work towards their needs.

Here's the problem. I have yet to see anybody within the gaming industry/community (myself included) offer any kind of suggestions as to how to communicate with children if the children are unresponsive to their parents. If the children refuse to listen and turn to games because games are not judgemental boring lectures, then perhaps the media is a "second parent" after all. So how does a parent regain control before the $#!+ hits the fan? I know I've read countless stories about parents being attacked or murdered by their children BECAUSE they tried to be responsible (like take away the console/game as a temporary punishment). This is a problem we need to be involved in and work with non-gaming parents to solve, if we want to end the blaming wars and keep video games free from overregulation.

We've already done the first step, which is prove our passion to change society's perception of gamers. Child's Play Charity's success has reached the mass media (if they only care about successful statistics, then fine, compare Child's Play to just about ANY OTHER charity in the same timeframe). Over $17 million in a decade, for what reason? Well, partially to help children's morale as they adapt into their hospital life, but also partially as a publicity stunt. It IS a publicity stunt to make us look good, but damn it I can not be more proud of this non-profit organization. So first step done. When will we do the second step towards raising awareness of improving communications between parent and child? If we want to counter the awareness raising of violence in media, then we need to raise awareness of communication issues and how to fix them! Problem is, I'm more knowledgable in teabagging in first-person shooters than talking to unresponsive children so I fail at life and have no suggestions. So who in the gaming community is mature enough to step up to the plate and carry our overall campaign to step 2?

Anyways speaking of bull$#!+ statistics, it appears the survey asks a lot of loaded questions. My favorite is "The policies of both the TV networks and the alcohol industry prevent advertising for alcoholic beverages from airing during programs viewed by large numbers of children. Should similar policies also apply to advertising for violent video games and violent movies when children are watching? [Yes/No/Not Sure]" I do find that question incredibly rigged to prevent anyone from saying no without looking irresponsible.

Here's another quirky tidbit from the survey unmentioned in the summary report: "Is the violence in today's video games a major problem? A minor problem? Or not a problem at all?" Results? Only 45% say it's a major problem, 44% say it's a minor problem, 8% say it's not a problem, and 2% are not sure. The objective of this survey is to imply violence in media, and access to weapons needs to be controlled, in order to reduce the overall violence in society. By directing this survey to parents, we recognize the problem is the difficulty parents go through to moderate their children. Apparently the only thing parents have tried is to shield them from violence altogether, which is obviously difficult as 787 parents in 50 states have attested to, but the survey uses this as their basis that parenting is not sufficient without additional regulation on violent media and access to weapons. Interesting how the survey only talks about supervision of children in relation to shielding them from violence, rather than supervision of children in relation to helping them adapt to violence appropriately. Here's another unmentioned favorite of mine: "Does the current system of movie and video game ratings allow parents to make informed decisions about violent content?" 68% yes, 23% no, 9% not sure. Well done ESRB.

My final thoughts are as follows. We are as responsible as the idiots in the world who fail to understand how to control violence. The answer is we can't. We can only adapt to violence and put forth a generation of individuals who can lead by example on how to be peaceful, yet support free speech of violence in media. Understand the difference between teabagging, and rape/harassment/sexism. Know screaming "BOOM! HEADSHOT!" is a viral reference to FPS Doug, yet also know that there are soldiers who suffer PTSD and commit suicide after coming home, because they saw humans killing humans regardless of political allegiance. We need to help parents build bridges with their children. Oh and one more thing, this survey involves 1,050 parents with children 18 years or younger from 50 states with its data collected from January 4th to January 5th of 2013... THAT'S A SINGLE ****ING DAY OF RECEIVING ANSWERS TO LOADED QUESTIONS! Real independent... At least their target is violent media and weapons, and not so much focused solely on video games. I'm terrified at how badly my post will break the site if anyone hits this spoiler button. I must apologize, but this topic rubs me the wrong way so I had even more to say than usual, and we all know how ****ing long-winded I already am.[/spoiler]

Many thanks for this really constructive and developed entry.

I wish I would be able to put such an entry but due to the following limitations I reached, I can't:
- English is not my first language and such topic deserve to avoid misunderstanding (which is already something hard to avoid when the language is not an issue)
- I'm not a parent so any advice from me regarding parenthood will loose a lot a credibility how accurate it could be
- I'm too lazy to write and re-read something of this level

PS: still need to read the full Penny Arcade's entry but seems to be a great one

[CptainCrunch]

K-16 is right with what was posted. These violent crimes are not because of a game or a gun. Its because of something started some time back.

The simple fact is that it is easier to say "games" and "guns" and lock it all up than it is to say "parents" and that is because games and guns do not vote.

Until we sit down and answer the real question of how to prevent these people that need help from hurting others, its not going to be fixed. There has to be things in place to get help to these people and there is not.

[K-16]

Thank you for spending time in reading my response Koin-Koin and CptainCrunch. That was probably the most amount of effort I put in for posting a comment (which in itself should be considered embarrassing and pretentious). I hope none of you hit the spoiler button, because GOD that wall of text just drones on and on.

My main point (which the letter in Mr. Krahulik's post is a sad real-life example) is that violent media and weapons are easy to blame, but how easy is it for US to blame parents? Our confused opposition has at least proposed suggestions on regulating media with more restrictions/bans. When will we do the same? Do we have a way to get children to listen to good parenting? What if the child doesn't want to listen? What's our proposal on getting children to open up and listen? This is the step 2 that I fail at figuring out because I'm full of $#!+. Child's Play is only step 1. If we can ever reach step 3, then I am confident our opposition will lose credibility because our voice would have a stronger foundation.

This is ironic... Step 1 done. Step 2... ??? Step 3 is profit (with our values and beliefs). It really is... If anybody can help, please do. And if we ever succeed, we should then focus on other victims of violence because it is very naive to assume children are the only targets. Again, thank you very much for reading.

[cikame]

"Hello, i'm with a parent watchdog organisation, are you a parent of a young family? are you scared and frightened of the world your children are growing up in? would you like to take a survey for your children, who are after all poor victims of this horrid world we live in?".

The results sure are shocking...