noob 45
Syndicate of Gods
47
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Posted - 2013.04.19 18:40:00 -
[1] - Quote
disclaimer: Although watching the 24/7 news about the stuff going down in Boston and the search for the terrorist suspects has inspired my epiphany to play devil's advocate on the subject, I am only acknowledging a long standing debate and I am not saying any of it is inspired by video games.
So last Saturday I was hanging out at a buddies house and he threw in grand theft auto 4, a game I hadn't played since it came out. Very limited content as opposed to gta3 so I got bored quickly, but that is a different thread entirely. Kind of the same deal right now with dust so I finally decided to revisit gta4. When I finished up doing homework last night just before midnight cst, I threw on gta4 while I had cnn turned cnn on another screen. Within 10 minutes of the game starting CNN starts their breaking news coverage of battle between the Boston terrorist suspects and police. This story pretty much sounds like a mission you might run as Niko in gta4. The bridge of naivety that my mind constructed to deflect the reality that videogames do have an affect on our subconscious selves collapsed below me.
Lets all be hoenst here. We all have encountered instances where people get completely out of hand. To put it bluntly there is an internet mentality and subconscious culture that has been developing, one in which people feel that a small amount of anonymity and possible unaccountability is enough reason to do and say things that one might not do "in real life." Every 15 minutes of COD you will hear a spectrum of racism, life threatening, and simply ****** up ****. We must all accept that although these are video games we are playing, this is still real life and you are experiencing it in the same way that even dreams are real life experiences. The way we perceive and experience and interpret the world in our brain can be overly simplified to an electrochemical process whether its seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, touching, or smelling. Even your imagination.
We all should step back and take a deep breath. Chill out for a minute. Everything we do and experience has a lasting effect on us and who we are and what we do. I'll be first to admit that I am no saint. Hell yesterday I spent half a skirmish teamkilling a bluedot because I held a grudge, and his corpmates because I'm an *******. Sorry kaloftherathe for killing you for helping my target. Despite the touch of buddha I'll probably tk boomer nextime anyways for that matter.
The point is we need to atleast recognize that we are affected by games. Even if it simply is being desensitized in some way. This goes double for parents who consider letting their kids play these ki |