November 1, 2007 -
When we last encountered TV shrink Dr. Phil McGraw, he was busy alienating gamers by relating the Virginia Tech massacre to violent video games.A still-critical, but seemingly more reasoned, version of Dr. Phil made an appearance yesterday on CBS morning program The Early Show to discuss Manhunt 2.
Watching as game journalist Scott Steinberg played the "Sexual Deviance" level of Manhunt 2 on the Wii, Dr. Phil commented:
Clearly, it's not good. The research has been very, very strong over the years that when you're exposed to violence and when you actually mimic something like this the aggression can go up.
Now the truth is, if somebody plays this game and then they go and do this in their life, there was something seriously wrong with them before they got the game. But it's modeling.
Early Show anchor Harry Smith asked about younger children getting their hands on Manhunt 2 despite the game's 17-and-older rating:
[The game is] in the house so the little kids can get it and, parents just have to be hyper-vigilant about it. This is not good modeling and it's not good rehearsal. Now does that mean they're going to go out and do this sort of thing? No, it doesn't mean that, but it does desensitize them to it and they're less sensitive when other people are that way.
Smith followed up by asking whether game violence was any worse than movie violence, a topic that has come up often of late in relation to Manhunt 2 and especially to the motion-controller Wii version. Dr. Phil said:
Higher level of involvement. it's just another level of getting closer to the violence...
Comments
I understood your point. I am just laughing at the expense of watchdog groups that seem to think that parents are incapable of making proper media decisions for their families.
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower
I'm guessing that he got a lot of negative feedback from teh last time he talked about videogames...
I may be wrong, but I think I remember hearing that other tests, not involving violence, showed similar responses in similar portions of the brain, which showed it may not only be reactions to violence. Am I wrong on that, or is this another instance of the media misrepresenting in order to make a story?
Huh, for once, he points out what most of us have been trying to get others to understand for a long time: Violent video games do not make normal, well adjusted people violent. However, it's the people that are already violent in some sort of way that tend to be drawn to the violent games more, be it kids, or adults.
*rant mode*
Of course, if the parents would actually, you know, do their job of PARENTING, we wouldn't be having this whole conversation now. If parents actually monitored what games their kids were buying and playing, and if parents didn't go out and buy little Johnny that copy of Manhunt 2 (which I can pretty much guarantee is how most underage kids will get it), then this wouldn't be a problem.
Of course, there will likely be someone coming in here to post all sorts of absolute nonsense about how Dr. Phil was actually saying that violent games cause all the violence in the world, and that we're all too dumb to see because we've all been lobotomized by video games. But that man is nothing but an attention whoring bully, who can only get his kicks from picking on other people he perceives, and wrongfully so, are less than him. He's exactly the type of person you see picking on kids in school. And I can pretty much guarantee that that's the exact type of person he was back in school, and he just hasn't grown up.
And of course, there will be the people that respond to him, in a varying manner of ways, some trying to be more on the nicer side, some being far more aggressive. And yet none of those posts will actually end up making any difference to him. In all actuality, they probably won't even be read, just like this post. Besides the fact that there's pretty much no way any of us will change his opinion on any of these subjects.
I could espouse the whole "ignore him and he'll go away", and while I think that could possibly work, chances are, it'd probably just cause him to start doing even more destructive things towards us.
Blah, rant mode sucks, cause I end up getting completely off topic.
tl;dr: Yeah, kids shouldn't be playing Manhunt 2, and yeah, it could probably give some person that's already sick in the head ideas, but that goes for pretty much any kind of media. The only difference is that games are more interactive.
I do think it'd be humorous to see some crazy kid try to kill someone with a Wiimote. Now that would be epic failure. Not to mention proof that training to kill people on games is kinda... Useless.
at least he realizes that, unlike others, ill give him that much. but after someone does a crime it in real life thats on THEM, not the game. i dont care how realistic it is or the level of involvment in the controls or how much the real life crime resembles the fictional crime (interactive or not). if you cant make out and/or tell the difference between fantasy and reality, thats your problem.
That's insane!! They should make a word for this sort of insanity!
Oh wait, they already did. It's called "parenting." Being vigilant of your kids activities is one of the highest priorities when it comes to being a parent. I don't see how having to ensure your kids aren't playing the wrong games falls outside the spectrum of other media, like movies.
Quite frankly, it does seem to contridict his prior statements, both drastically and perhaps even in a subtle way.
I'm still underimpressed with his statements. And the contridictions from one story to the next doesn't help his case. Hard to take someone serious when they start to kiss arse.
Nightwng2000
NW2K Software
Who says they are vigilant over the movies their kids watch?
"Dr." Phil seems reasonable here. I still don't like him, but he is like Yee in that they do understand games to an extent.
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower
I'm saying they should be. It's something parents should be concerned about.
In his defence, he did state that a normal person will not be turned into a psycho killer by playing games before. It was in one of the last stories about him. So he is not totally contridicting himself.
But then again, if a person games more facts and changes their stance on a subject due to those new facts, are they really contradicting themselves? Not that I am saying that Phil here has all the facts.
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower
Quiet, you are letting the influence of Manhunt 2 surface before scheduled. We need to wait for the programmed time. ;)
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower
So if they're normal, it ok. But if they're already f'd up, it's the video games' fault for "tipping them over the edge"???
Now he's reaching.
What research? Please, tell me what study has ever shown this.
While children probably should not exposed to this, it is idiotic to think we can or should shelter children from violence. Violence is not caused by the media, as there has been violence since before we developed language. Today, major causes of violence include abusive development and poverty, along with many others. If people want to reduce violence in society, go after those.
Maybe parents could keep a seperate system in their room with their games in a locked cabinet?
He didn't say violent games made kids violent. And I agree, you would have to be messed up already to go out and mimic what you see on the game and kill.
What Dr. Phil said made so much more sense than anything Jack Thompson ever said about video games and violence.
Meth addicts say things that make more sense than what JT spews.
I play video games, even the ever-so-feared "violent video games". I've also been to war, and been in real violent situations. Video Games did nothing to even remotely desensitize or prepare me, in any, way, shape, or form for the reality of having to kill someone before that person kills me. When mortality is on the line, it is a whole other situation.
I've also dealt with people who had some serious mental issues, like a friend of mine literally running me out of her house for fear of my own life while she was wielding a kitchen knife and shouting nonsense at me. If it wasn't for the help of some neighbors of hers to let me in and then lock their door as she started breaking it off its hinges, I may not be alive today (it took 4 Army MPs to hold down a 130lb, 5'10" woman, who was tossing them around like sacks of potatoes individually). Once again, video games did nothing to prepare me for reality, or desensitize me to reality.
Dr. Phil needs to stop pushing his agenda, underhanded, overtly, or really in any way. It is a load of BS, and is statements made from someone who tries to intellectualize the problem, without ever taking stark reality into account.
Honestly, if video games and movies were as effective as they claim at desensitizing people to violence then why is it that after 19+ years of seeing some of the most gruesome and violent material in both games and movies can I still be bothered by real life violence or realistically depicted violence in movies? If it was so successful at doing what they claim then I should be able to watch people being harmed without so much as flinching, but that's not the case. I can't even bring myself to harm a mouse and if I do I feel bad afterwards because I don't like hurting living creatures. If these violent images were as successful as these people claim at desensitizing people, then I shouldn't have a problem with it or even have a problem with harming others.
The people who do those things are naturally desensitized because there is something wrong with them, even before the violent material they've been viewing or playing. While Dr. Phil tries and take a little blame off of video games by admitting that a person who does something like that after playing a game is because they're already disturbed, I still don't believe that it really desensitize us either, not to real world violence at least.
You beat me to it.
Parents own porn too, do they share it with kids or keep it away?
Sorry but no. Long odds he is just repeating the words of others (his corportate sponsers come to mind). Unlikely he has played the game that his is now an expert on, but still trying to link it to school shootings. Sigh. Oh but wait; he deigned to admit that watching/played violent games will not turn one into a mindless psycho killer. This is common knowledge (and common sense). Dig a bit deeper Doctor.
as for desensitize.....in the case of media it makes you panic a bit less when sht happens or even helps you deal with loss and death better than one who never experienced the emotions, all it dose is use those emotions more and helps make you more mature in handling some emotions.
witch makes the PC nazi fight against it kinda funny because they want to keep people deaf, dumb and blind.
*LOL*
"Now the truth is, if somebody plays this game and then they go and do this in their life, there was something seriously wrong with them before they got the game."
He even SAID it. No one goes out there and just randomly decides "Huh. I'm gonna strangle my teacher because I saw it on (insert media here)" EVER.
If I could beat stupidity out of people with a baseball bat... *sigh* ah well.
I'm not sure beating it out of them would work. they would just deny it later.
DAMN RIGHT!!!
parents have gotten lazy and use media as a scapegoat when their crazy ass kids do something bad.
Bobby killed James because he played manhunt. WRONG bobby killed James because his dumb ass parents didn't stop him when they caught him torturing his gerbil in first grade.
(bobby and james do not exist...al teast i hope they don't)
Honestly if we were offering any sort of education in America children should be 'reading' about worse acts than what's portrayed in this game. It's a simple story of one's identity. No one ever mentions plot, or what's driving the people to murder. Unless they're a bunch of Marines in a small village in Iraq. Every excuse to the contrary comes up then.
That being said, a lot of people criticize gaming the wrong way. Dr. Phil is several steps closer to the right way. I don't agree with what he said, but I'd rather listen to him and Yee than.. oh... Thompson and Grossman.
at least Dr.Phil is looking at both sides of the coin
岩「…I can see why Hasselbeck's worried about fake guns killing fake people. afterall, she's a fake journalist on a fake news channel」
The same absurd moron who instructs people to learn more about religious traditions that glorfy genocide, murder, and rape?
Sexual deviance in games is great when the content permits and suggests it. Conservative morons must learn that displays of sexuality on a fictional level are NEVER immoral for adults.
Let me apply the concept of "modeling to deter behavior:" Islam, Christianity, and Judaism all glorfy genocide acts of martyrdom that encourage people to devalue the lives of others and kill in the name of religion. Using Dr. Phil's own line of reasoning, we should not reject these sick creeds for the CONTENT in the creed [a genocidal, ficticious, and morally perverse conception of "God"] but simply because the creed inspired immoral behavior in a TINY FRACTION of those who understand it.
Pretty lame argument? I think so too. Just another example of Judeo-Christian contradictory value systems. They just love trying to rape us of our autonomy and freedom...
I've already made my argument before that last comment. But, it still serves a purpose. This is a man who goes around telling other people how to improve themselves and what they should do and how they can improve their marriages and such, as well as the occasional video game/gamer bash he does. I'm basically saying that he shouldn't be taken seriously since he can't even follow his own advice apparently if he can't keep his life and marriage together.
Exactly. You could have a bunch of AO games lying around the house, but if the console has parental controls on it, the kiddies can't play them. I think that's the major issue here, not enough parents are aware of those controls. If they were, maybe they'd shut the hell up.
In a perfect world where adults WERE being responsible parents, we wouldn't need these controls, but this is the age of machine dependence so just roll with the punches I guess.
@Dexee:
Sure it does! Ultra-Violence was a difficulty level in Doom before I Am Death Incarnate! :)