In the past few months there has been a disturbing rise in violent behaviour in children linked in some way to technology. There are a few examples I can call on. The first is the 17-year old being put away in jail for killing his parents over a dispute over the Xbox game Halo 3. Basically the kid was banned from playing and when retrieving his copy of the game he took his fathers 9mm pistol and the proceeded to “pop a cap” in his parents. Pretty twisted right? Well it gets worse.
The next story is about two 30-year old brothers (not physically children but mentally equivalent it seems) choking and then stabbing each other over the question of who was next to play an unidentified Playstation game. Pretty weird story huh?
Story number three happened just under a week ago and features a 16-year old girl attacking her parents for revoking her cellphone privileges. She had her phone taken away for stealing money to buy prepaid credit. As a result the girl attacked her parents with two knives, slashing into the door of the room the parents were hiding in. Fortunately no one was heard in the attack but I think a cellphone being taken away is the least of this young girls problems.
I think the question is what is creating such violent children. Is it video games, is it bad parenting or can we blame Slipknot for all our issues? I’m not going to make a judgment call on this one as I lack enough information to be judgmental but the fact of the matter is that we as a society are becoming excessively desensitised when it comes to violence.
I think we all need to wake up and realise that the kids of today are rapidly becoming the psychopaths of tomorrow. Something needs to be done to remove this issue of extreme aggression on behalf of the youth of today. I’m personally not sure what on earth is going on but I’ll leave you with the issue to ponder.
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I think the problem is bloggers that go around compiling lists of violent actions so that any young would-be attackers can get ideas to put the hurt on the old folk.
I disagree Gangsta- the point here is that there are some disturbed people out there, and the technology (for some) is not enough of an outlet for this pent-up aggression. We need to find another solution for those who take the pixelised antics of a gamer’s imagination into the real world- these kids don’t need more violent games, they need some SERIOUS help. The issue for me is not IF something needs to be done- for it’s what measures need to be taken…do we become like the Americans and child-proof everything because of some rotten apples or do we just leave it and let evolution take its course…?