“20+ years of violent games being played by kids all over the world has pretty much disproven any knee-jerk reaction to try and claim that playing violent games causes kids to become violent.”
How does that disprove it? Obviously, not every kid who plays a violent video game is going to become a murderer, but unless you have statistics that show that violence remained constant rather than increasing, you can’t say definitively that there was not an overall trend in terms of an increase in violence.
I’m not saying that you’re wrong; obviously I don’t have statistics that show that violence did increase, but just as I can’t say that I have absolute proof to back up my statement, the same goes for you.
I think, however, that on a level of common sense, it’s intuitive that video games of all kinds send certain subliminal messages, and it’s important to separate out those that are a harmless waste of time from those that can encourage dangerous tendencies in impressionable adolescents.
It’s even more dangerous if you let them start early- I once babysat for a seven-year-old whose parents let him play video games. I watched him play endless rounds of a wrestling game and could see the satisfaction on his face as his virtual character dealt imaginary blows. He was really enjoying watching the other characters get hurt. At one point, he came up against a female character, and when he defeated her, he said vehemently, “That will teach boys not to fight with girls!” Obviously, I took offense at that, but I wasn’t going to debate a seven-year-old! Anyway, the point is that I could tell he was really investing himself in the game and taking real pleasure out of the violence, and that is where it gets dangerous. I’m not saying that he’s going to be violent when he gets older, but I think he is naturally more predisposed to violence than a seven-year-old who doesn’t play these types of games.