I guess kids grow up in a different world these days. There seem to be violence everywhere; video games, TV/movies, and schools. I still remembered in the old days, I used to have a toy gun and we like to use it to kill cockroaches or dirty mice move into our flat. We never thought of using it on people (ok, some might but not us) except when playing "wargame". (This is kind of like paintball, but w/ 6mm small plastic pullets. We wear protective masks and all.) Nowadays, people think games, TV, movies with ultra-realistic violence's are to blame for all the violence involved kids. But is it that simple?

In the good old days, concerned parents were complaining about toy guns and GI Joe. They believed these toys encourage violence in kids. But these items seem certainly like Mickey Mouse when compared to Doom/Quake/GTA we got today. The theory is that kids learn and act out what they see in games and movies. Is games/movie/TV to blame solely?

When I heard child mimics killing/violence in game, my questions were: Why these kids were given/getting these games without their parents noticing? Did the parents explain to the kid it is just a game and don't be stupid and serious blah, blah, and blah? These games were not the only reason bad things happened. In our society, parent-child relationship is getting weaker and weaker because many parents are busy working, they are not able to spend time to communicate and understand their kids. Let's face it, kids do need guidelines how to behave, need supervision from time to time. Kids let alone by themselves learn from their environment and behave however they like, with no bounce check on right or wrong.

As a society, we did not set a good model for our youth. We ARE violence in nature: rough hockey play, road rage, wars and killing, the big brother, SUV that bully smaller size cars, the post 9/11 all-out war against "terrorists". What kind of model we're showing to our kid?

Culture/environment different also play a part in the problem. Japan, another industrialized country, seem to have much lower youth violence crime rate. Even the problem there has surged in recent years, but the problem is nowhere near what we have in North America. Many believed the recent surge of youth violence in Japan has something to do with the education system and the attitude toward life change in the younger generation.

Yes, I don't have an answer, or even a clue. Maybe I just leave it to the sociologist.

Some links: Here and here

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