Computer Games and Crime
Dear Editor,
January 24, 1996
I have long been uncomfortable with the violence that is played out in
so many computer games: killing and maiming are the objective; the more you do it, the
more points you get. It seems that this level of interactive role-playing is even more
harmful than passively watching violence played out on television or in movies. In the
computer game, the operator makes the decision to kill, whereas on television the decision
has been made elsewhere and is merely observed.
My awareness of the potency of this role-playing and its connection to
crime rates in the country was heightened recently when I read an A.P. article by Gwynne
Dyre of London, titled, "Society suffers when inhibition to murder removed." (Daily
Herald, Provo, UT, Jan. 6, 1996.) She reported the astonishing finding, which I find
heartening, that during World War II "only 15 to 20 percent of the soldiers ever
fired their weapons in battle. ...In fact as few as 5 percent of the soldiers on the
battlefield were doing almost all of the killing." The experts "calculated the
theoretical lethality of various kinds of weapons, and came up with kill rates 20 to 50
times higher than those actually observed in battle."
To remedy this "problem," the military devised various
"desensitization and conditioning techniques. Soldiers no longer shoot at bulls-eyes;
they train against pot-up targets resembling human beings, in order to make shooting at a
human target seem a familiar routine. They also undergo specific 'operating conditioning,'
designed to make shooting so reflexive that they only have time to think about it
afterwards.
"It worked so well that by the time of the Vietnam War, up to 95
percent of American soldiers were firing their weapons at the enemy." This is likely
"why Vietnam veterans suffer such a very high rate of post-traumatic stress
disease."
Then comes the punch-line of the study: "In the past 30 years, for
the first time, we have unleased almost identical techniques of desensitization and
operating conditioning against our own children in the name of entertainment."
Just as we as a society have finally acknowledged the powerful
role-model for violence that television and other visual media play, let us likewise
acknowledge and combat the even more potent interactive violence role played in so many
computer games. They are not just innocent brushes with relaxation. As a man thinketh in
his heart, so is he. (Prov. 23:7.)
Though children may resist at first, they usually have an even greater
sense of good and evil than their parents, and can be taught to shun such things of their
own choosing. Let's do it, teaching this lesson in our schools, churches, and most
importantly our homes; and let's start with ourselves, for violent computer games are
played by more than just children. There is too much of what is good in this world to
patronize those things that will destroy us.
Sincerely,
