James v. Meow Media and the Role of Responsibility
In James v. Meow Media Inc., Michael Carneal, an avid video-gamer, is responsible for the murder of his high school peers. Research of Carneal’s daily habits showed that the content of his video games was a potential cause of his disastrous behavior. When dealing with a minor, factors of life while approaching the level of maturity must be taken into consideration. This case shows the ease in which fingers are pointed in efforts to protect a child in need of help. Negligence was the common theme for why the affected families felt Meow Media owed a duty of care. In the case of a 14 year-old minor, the presence and the proactive nature of a parent is vital. Because Carneal’s parents
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Additionally, it was revealed that a history of mental illness was common on his father’s side of the family (Moore, Petrie , Braga & McLaughlin, 2003). The symptoms of Carneal’s illnesses were apparent in his daily interactions. By being aware of familial disorders and observing his socially dysfunctional behavior, proper precautions could have been taken sooner. Parents observe the behaviors of their children each day and, therefore, owe a duty of care. Meow Media Inc. made and sold their video games with no intention of them falling into the hands of a troubled child. The likelihood of a mentally/emotionally stable individual taking action to endanger innocent lives in order to mimic a game is low. Learning and understanding right from wrong is instilled during an individual’s early youth. Depending on varying circumstances, the environment that a child is placed in may have an adverse effect on the child’s development. Genetic defects are major circumstances that, if not handled with care and caution, could alter a child’s reaction to his or her environment. In 1978, A Dutch woman took action to stop the vicious cycle that haunted her family. Her family consisted of multiple aggressive men that carried a long history of rape dating back to 1870. When she saw that her son acquired some of these familial traits, she immediately took action (Richardson, 1993). Geneticists ran a series of tests and found that the personality disorder that
Sociologist and the author, Karen Sternheimer, in her article, “do video games kill?” (2007), argues that media and politicians are quick to blame video games when teens kill. She supports her claim by first talking about politicians and other moral crusaders frequently create “folk devils,” individuals or groups defined as evil and immoral, then both politicians and news outlets felt that video games were the ones to inculpate, also news reports showed little importance to the broader social contexts, and finally dubious about the juvenile justice. Sternheimer’s purpose is to persuade in order to show that video games is not the only explanation as to why teens kill. She creates a professional tone for students, teachers, parents, politicians
Have you ever wonder “Do Video Games Kill?” Well, Karen Sternheimer, the author of the essay who focuses on the youth and popular culture has explained it very well in the essay. Sternheimer addresses the wide spread idea of how video games are the cause for killers at a young age. She believes the influence of video games may have a little on the youth being out of control. Sternheimer puts most of the blame for the youth of being out of control on the media. She also writes some about politicians and the Juvenile Justice system. She also points out that the youth not only is influenced by video games, but also the home life. While it may be that juvenile crimes have declined and personal
Children play. The manner in which children have played has frequently changed throughout the years. There was a time where sticks or index fingers were used to symbolize guns or bows in order for children to play “cowboys and Indians.” Later, the same mechanisms were used as children would play “cops and robbers.” Children mimic what they see in reality when it is time to play. However, children are not known to mimic what they play when functioning in real life. For example, children who played “cowboys and Indians” were not known to actually go out and try to harm others in the belief that they actually were cowboys or Indians. These examples are relevant in today’s society as critics of violent video games often attribute violence in reality to the violence in video games. However, videos games are a form of play and, as the previous examples have shown, what a child plays is not reflected in what that child actually does in their real life.
In the late 90s, it seemed that school violence was on the rise as three separate devastating school shootings occurred over a three-year span. The most severe of the three due to the high death toll was the shooting at Columbine High School, also the one most associated with violent video game influence. The two assailant's levels of gaming expertise and their participation in online gaming was in question as motivation for their killing spree. It was this knowledge that sparked a media frenzy over who's to blame for the heinous acts being committed by these obviously troubled youths. However, other issues in these children's lives can contribute to a deeper explanation.
Over the past few centuries,video games have become a great leisure and hobby among kids of all ages and cultures. With the advancement of technology, video games have advanced highly in its realism and genres. This high type of advancement brought the video game industry to a multi-billion dollar industry. However, with realism, comes negative effects as well. Ever since the creation of violent or “mature” video games, there has been a constant debate on whether it will increase violence in the player. Although, not all video games are violent, and just increase skills in a player such as hand-eye coordination. Nevertheless, there is research going on for the link between violent video games and youth violence. The question is which event happens first in the sequence, do violent video games aggravate a person’s violent behavior, or does a person get rid of their anger through playing violent video games? Either way, violent video games are not beneficial to our society.
Content analyses show that 89% of video games have some violent content. Half of the video games on the market have extreme violent actions toward other characters. Games, today, are allowing players to not only connect with the game physically, but also emotionally and psychologically. In essence, the player becomes the character. According to Nielson Media Research, at least 45 million households in the United States have at least one video game console (Markey & Charlotte, 2010). The average age of video game players has increased to age 34, and 60% of Americans play interactive games on a regular basis. However, researchers believe that younger children are more susceptible to the negative effects of playing violent video games compared to older teenagers and adults. Furthermore, games that include violence have raised serious concerns among
Before the 1999 Columbine tragedy, there was the 14-year-old boy in Paducah, Kentucky who, in 1997, went on a shooting spree at his local school. Parents of 3 of the shooting victims filed lawsuits against 25 media companies seeking $130 million in damages, citing that the shooter, Michael Carneal, learned how to shoot a gun by playing video and computer games. The lawsuits further implied that violent movies and internet pornography were to blame for the boy’s behavior (Holmstrom, par. 6).
In the article “Can a Video Game Lead to Murder?,” Ed Bradley reports on an incident in Fayette, Alabama involving the shooting of three police officers by a teenager and a multi-million dollar lawsuit against both the makers and sellers of the Grand Theft Auto video game. In his report Bradley uses inflammatory words, skewed facts, and quotes of prominent public figures to try and agitate uninformed parents and make them more conscious of games and the effects they may have on their children.
Over 90% of children around the world play video games, and over 90% of those are violent. This staggering amount of simulated violence has initiated devastation to everyone. Parents of all origins try to protect their kids from cruelty, but in the process of buying them pugnacious video games, they are pursuing the opposite effect. Simulated brutality in games are precarious because the history of gaming is tied to violence, it is treating killing as banter, and it surges bullying and aggression among players.
Video games shoulder the blame when discussing the delicate minds of children and what they are exposed to. The name of their game: Desensitization. A virtual reality which enables adolescents to relate to or live through a fictional character can undercut the violence some of these games let the player experience. “First person shooter (FPS), Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games and fighting games largely favor intense battles with temporary or no unfavorable consequences”(Philips 2009). Some games allow the user total freedom, including the ability to run over, shoot, and dismember pedestrians for points. The impact may vary between aggressive behavior and social ineptitude; either which still requiring a nominal amount of exposure to highly explicit depictions by this form of entertainment. In addition, not to be left out is the possibility that a lack of sufficient interaction from parental figures resulted in the reclusive or aggressive behavior of a child to begin with(Jones).
The evolution of video games has taken a drastic change since the 1970’s when video games were first introduced. Since then every decade video games have become more violent in nature with strong language and realistic to suit society today. Craig Anderson states that with more violence in video games they would sell better than games with less violence (Anderson, Gentile, and Beckley pg.5). Violent video games really became popular when the first person shooter games were invented so that we could see through the eyes of the player, as if we were really experiencing it. Society wanted better graphics and games as time went on new technology was invented and society matured in electronics. This meant that for game creators would have to come up with something better selling than the last. Creators would make the games more violent and more realistic each time so that way they can keep the interest of their consumers. Each game would increase in blood or gore slowly, but what really got consumers to buy their games would be the update of graphics in the consoles or games. This is due to the drastic changing of technology and the maturing of consumers wanting better and newer violent video games. Violent video games can cause children to behave violently if not correctly supervised.
Over the years, the popularity of computer and video games has grown. Specifically violent video games make up more than 50 % of the top selling games. These games include violent themes that involve guns, crime, blood, and gore. There is an ongoing belief that these types of games are to blame for the many acts of violence in society and have encouraged America’s youth to act out in aggression. Several organizations, such as the PTC (Parents Television Council) have moved to discourage the development of violent games while also pushing for stronger regulations when purchasing such games. There is also debate among parents and concerns on how games can negatively influence their children. So is there a direct link between video games and violence? The truth is video games do not encourage violence in society based on several factors which include scientific studies, statistics on crime, and prevention measures adopted by game publishers.
Aimee Tompkins (2003) claims that children are being affected by everything what they see around them in the youth, and people, who see violence in the youth, always tend to be more hostile and less responsive to images of violence. That 's why parents try to border children from any possible negative influences. But they often do not even realize that by buying to child a game console, they put them into the risk. Since most video games contain violent character. According to statistics given by the ‘Children now’ organization (2001), 89% of the top-selling video games have violent character and serious violence is contained in half of them.
“Recent contents analyses of video games show that many as 89% of games contain some violent contents” (Gentile, Lynch, Linder, Walsh 3). More than half of video games being sold around the world contain some form of violence. All of the violence involved in the video games being played by children is a pattern leading to aggression. Aggression can be caused by many things; however, violent video games are the main cause of aggression in young adults. “If a child began playing violent video games at a young age, then he might think that violence in real life is the same as the game violence and that it doesn’t have a real impact on others” (Gilad, Alto 1). Thinking that violence in the virtual world is the same as in the real world is the first step to showing aggression. Aggression in children caused by video games is the biggest effect parents and researchers worry about. Violent video games teach children that shooting and killing people are
Controversy about video games continue to escalate between parents and gamers, regarding the psychological effect of simulated, realistic, and 3D violence on the minds of young children and growing teenagers. Yet, research shows that video games contribute very little to today’s everyday violence, despite complaints and concerns that games influence a child’s normal behavior. Technology is a way of life in today’s world, computers are used by toddlers, adolescents, and adults alike. No matter what career path a person chooses, the computer plays an essential role in the job. The more our technology progresses and as our industry grows stronger, computers and electronic entertainment will grow to be found everywhere around the world. This includes videogames.