Video Game Causes Boy to Shoot his Parents

Interesting article. I think there is no doubt that kids become more aggressive when watching violent movies, however, I do not think that it has the same effect with video games. Being a "gamer" myself I never feel the same energetic/aggressive feeling that I do when watching a kung-fu type movie. If anything, video games, for me, help relieve stress that might lead me too aggression. With that said, I am not the same person as the kid who killed his parents so I have no idea how much a video game could affect him.

I remember watching this as well. I agree with you that video games influence children's behavior but I don't think that it is the cause of violence. I like how you mentioned that there could have been many other factors that drove this boy to kill his family.

I think it is a very interesting article. I do think that the video game may have had some influence the his decision to shoot his parents. I also think that there are other external factors because there are many other adolescence that are "addicted" to video games, yet the thought of shooting their parents never crosses their minds. All in all I think it is a very interesting study, and I definitely think it does support the theory that violent video games give rise to added aggression.

Interesting, I agree with you that violent game influences Daniel's behavior. His aggressiveness resulted in killing his parents, which is so extreme. And apart from that, I think the environment that Daniel lives and the characteristics formed after cognition also impact the behavior of Daniel. If he always lives under positiveness, he would probably have less violent behaviors. That is my guess, though. The reasons of violent behavior have always been controversial. In a word, this is a good blog! Nice job!

Very interesting blogpost. You gave a very engaging example on this topic. It is always interesting for me to know if media could affect people's behaviors intensely. I agree with your opinion that the video game was a factor of Daniel's violence. I think it is a major factor.

I would have to mostly disagree with video games causing violent behavior and go with the other side of the argument on this one. If Daniel was home-bounded because of an infection, than other factors probably contributed to why he acted out the way he did when his parents took away his game. Having played violent video games before, never have I once felt so enraged to rampantly take out my aggression on something or someone else. My roommate freshman year however, who had been diagnosed with a few disorders, acted entirely differently as he would yell and curse, even through his controller on the ground. However, he would do the same when he was unable to get the right answer on a quiz or homework problem, and I think it's safe to say that schoolwork does not cause violence (just stress)... at least we would hope! Thanks for the article, it was interesting to read.

Good post I remember seeing this as well. I do agree that video games influence children's behavior however I strongly feel that videos games do not cause of violence, but other things like poor living situations, bad parenting, or other issues that would bring this to such an extreme level.
I like how you mentioned that there could have been many other factors that drove this boy to kill his family.
overall video games were involved but not the cause in my opinion, sad story but very interesting.

This is a very tragic incident that reinforces my opinion that violent video games cause violent behavior in children. In the video we watched during discussion, the psychologist said that kids' minds "are like sponges", meaning that they observe everything and are constantly learning. I believe that if a child consistently sees violent images on the screen, he will learn to want to participate in violent activities. Although Halo 3 might not have been the only motivating force in this situation, I definitely believed it had somewhat of an influence in Daniel's actions.

I think this could go hand in hand with the different types of parenting. I've played violent video games with my dad, and even though my mom didn't approve I didn't feel the need to shoot her. It sounds like all he did was play the game, which probably meant he had no friends causing depression, and that depression lead into the anger for the need to kill his parents. I don't know, but the game itself didn't make him a killer.

I thought you did a great job on this post and I found it very interesting. I agree with many of the previous comments that video games can influence people's behavior, but I don't think that they cause violence. There has to be more than one factor to cause people to lash out with violence.

This was a very intriguing article, the title definitely caught my eye! I agree with you in the fact that the video game did play a role in the child's decision to shoot his parents. I think that although it is not true that video games influence all children in that way, it still can play a role in it. On top of a child's depression, anxiety, and whatever else, violent video games do not help. Although they may not lead children to do violent acts necessarily, they still impact children negatively. It really is unnecessary for young children to be exposed to such violence and cruelty.

I believe Daniel didn't necessarily shoot his parents because of the video game but because of his parents actions. Some people are more prone to violence and when something that they love gets taken away from them, in this case the violent video game, they decide to act in anger. It would be interesting to know what Daniel feels is the culprit behind his anger- his parents actions or the video game? I think it is interesting though to find correlations between the subject of violence and video games though.