Dr. Phil: dodge this bullet

Dr. Phil, known to many North Americans as Oprah Winfrey's T.V. psychologist, is a vocal critic against video game violence. A few days ago, his criticism of the gaming world stepped over the line.

Dr. Phil claimed that the Virginia Tech shootings, an act performed by a lunatic (by any one's definition), was due to violent video games.

“The problem is we are programming these people as a society. You cannot tell me - common sense tells you - that if these people are playing video games where they’re on a mass killing spree in a video game, it’s glamorized on the big screen, it’s become part of the fiber of our society. You take that and mix it with a psychopath, a sociopath, or someone suffering from mental illness, add in a dose of rage, the suggestibility is just too high. And we’re going to have to start dealing with that. We’re going to have to start addressing those issues and recognizing that the mass murderers of tomorrow are the children of today that are being programmed with this massive violence overdose.”

For Dr. Phil, the fact that this homicidal psychopath once played the first person shooter game Counterstrike made the link to violence solid as steel.

Like many in the gaming community, I am frustrated that the main stream intelligentsia trots out it's usual target, gaming, every time a tragic event like the Virginia Tech shootings occur. They blame the desensitizing effect of video games on the increased chance that players resort to real-world violence. Hours and hours of headshots and nade tossing makes us more likely to take out our frustrations on our colleagues and loved ones I suppose.

To be sure there are numerous studies that suggest a link between exposure to violence or violent images and violence itself.

The point I would like to make here is that there are many sources of violence and violent images - why single out video games?

Television, radio, contemporary music? Don't tell me that those media are free from violent imagery or refrain from descriptions of violence.

Let's look at the effect of television on increasing our exposure to violence.

In 1992, TV Guide ordered a study of a typical eighteen hour television broadcast day to assess the level of violence shown. TV networks and the cable channels were monitored for "purposeful, overt, deliberate behavior involving physical force or weapons against other individuals."

TV Guide reported that there were 1,846 acts of violence as follows:

cartoons 471
promos for TV shows 265
movies 221
toy commercials 188
music videos 123
commercials for films 121
TV dramas 69
news 62
tabloid reality shows 58
sitcoms 52
soap operas 34

That's a great deal of exposure.

Apparently, after reading the statistics, former TV mega-mogul Ted Turner was quoted as saying: "They're guilty of murder. We all are -- me too."

So it's Ted's fault! I knew it.

I'm sure previous generations were much less prone to kill - as they were exposed to much less violence.

Um. Maybe not. My parents went through a little thing called World War II. You may have heard about it Dr. Phil (don't Google it...the pictures might upset you). The folks who came through that experience seemed to have done alright; although, they were a bit tightly wound - army training tends to do that of course.

After WWII came Korea, a war that apparently was caused by politicians reading too many comic books.

My generation (somewhere between the baby boomers and Gen X) have apparently been desensitized towards violence by newspapers, radio and television since we were five years old. I have not found any of my peers any more or less caring and loving than the previous generation that came before.

Recently we have had Gulf War I and II and we now are going through the messy occupation of Iraq. We have had to constantly deal with the images from these events on the nightly news. I am sure that has done some desensitization. Funny though...I don't hear Dr. Phil say anything about that.

You would think that all the televised stories about people strapping themselves with nitro and blowing themselves up at their version of the local Publix would have provoked a stronger response from the good doctor.

Before this week's Virginia Tech massacre, the most deadly school shooting in history took place at the University of Texas in Austin, way back in 1966. This seriously predates video games.

Those damn comic books!

But what of the video game link?

Violent video games do tend to attract people already pre-disposed to violence and could skew the anecdotal evidence of them affecting our behavior.

For me, my experience with FPS's and the like is that they do not perceptibly make me more likely to reach for a gun or a club (a mouse...maybe). Nor have they desensitized me: yes, I still cry at weddings and funerals.

Phil's comments on the VT tragedy must be clearly viewed as a cynical ploy to get his name injected into that week's news cycle. Those good folks who perished did so at the hand of a raving loon. A loon who gave ample warning. By the way, warnings that should have been picked up by Dr. Phil's colleagues.

There is more exposure to simulated violence nowadays. But I'd rather it be fake violence than the actual thing. As a kid I played cowboys and injuns. Nowadays, kids play it online. Two hundred years ago, our ancestors were playing it for real. Progress I think.

Please spend a minute thinking about those who perished last week.

http://www.vt.edu/tragedy/list.php