Apparently you ain't parents

With regard to the topic of video games having an effect on violent behavior, I think that the role of parenting is often undervalued.

The article (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/body/what-science-knows-about-video-games-and-violence/) on pbs.org stated that in order to study the results of video game violence on personality/psychology, researchers would have to "(take) several tens of thousands of people, from children on up to adults, dividing them into groups with comparable socioeconomic, genomic, and behavioral profiles, setting them to play first-person shooters with varying amounts of regularity, then following them for years, routinely conducting psychological tests and tracking their real-world behaviors."

The part that sticks out to me is "following them for years". You can't determine a person's proclivity toward violence, and whether it is due to video games, in one hour/one day/etc. You have to actually know the person, which is where parenting comes in.

I think that the more troubling aspect of the effects of video games, is that one of the biggest reasons video games are such a profitable industry is because they are something for parents to give their kids so they don't have to deal with them, much less teach them philosophical and moral lessons. "Just get 'em something so they can sit in front of the tv without bothering me."

Many people have children before they are ready to deal with the enormous commitment it takes to properly raise and teach a human being right from wrong, etc. So, video games are a welcome distraction to avoid the amount of effort it takes to do so.

This can be related to the fixed mindset/growth mindset TED talk that was shown in class. The speaker said that the human brain is malleable, and I tend to agree.

A human being is like a sculpture, and the amount of wisdom and guidance and assurance that a parent bestows upon their child is like the formation of the material of the sculpture. If you use poor materials, you will have a poor sculpture. The trial and error, good times, bad times, and sometimes brutal ass-kicking that life gives you is the formation of the sculpture. It takes both of these processes to create a life that is worthwhile and meaningful.