Violence and videogames, teens and kids

After watching the GTA: Regent Park episode of Regent Park TV, I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to feel. Yeah I did feel a bit bored during the thing, but that’s because the start of it drags a bit. After having seeing the whole episode of the show that’s supposedly made for youth by youth, I’m not quite sure if I should be annoyed by the fact that a lot of these kids are too young to purchase this from an ESRB abiding retailer, or if I should be amused by the odd reactions from the kids when they were interviewed.

Here, check the video out yourselves:

Personally, I’m wondering if these kids are even able to appreciate a lot of the humor and the references put into GTA games, but that’s just me, and I’m old and out of touch.

The full article awaits after the jump!

After watching the GTA: Regent Park episode of Regent Park TV, I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to feel. Yeah I did feel a bit bored during the thing, but that’s because the start of it drags a bit. After having seeing the whole episode of the show that’s supposedly made for youth by youth, I’m not quite sure if I should be annoyed by the fact that a lot of these kids are too young to purchase this from an ESRB abiding retailer, or if I should be amused by the odd reactions from the kids when they were interviewed.

Here, check the video out yourselves:

Personally, I’m wondering if these kids are even able to appreciate a lot of the humor and the references put into GTA games, but that’s just me, and I’m old and out of touch.

After having seen that video I then managed to find this report by Reuters about a study showing that violent videogames have an emotionally arousing effect on teens. Dr. Vincent Mathews, a professor of radiology at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis had this to say:

What we showed is there is an increase in emotional arousal. The fight or flight response is activated after playing a violent video game.

Yeah, I know, they used teens for the University research, but I just have to compare, I mean, the only fight or flight response I can see in that Regent Park vid is the kids wanting to dodge the question “do you want to go out and steal a bike?” He looks like he obviously wants to.

Who wouldn’t?

I bet you that if that kid, pubescent teen or not, played Metal Gear Solid for 5 hours straight, afterwards he’d want sneak around his school hallways using a cardboard box to avoid detection from hall-monitors. I bet you that if that kid, teen or not, played Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time for 3 hours straight, afterwards he’d want to to “platforming tricks” on the architecture he comes across – run on the walls and jump on top of cars and stuff like that.

Thing is, they don’t. Because they know that beyond the games there are things they shouldn’t be doing, and some would argue that those things aren’t the games fault anymore.