5. VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES

When I was a schoolboy, I used to ask my teachers about things I didn’t understand, and the response they gave me to those questions helped to shape my life. I can still remember some of those questions and the replies I received. There was never a question about challenging what the teacher said. The teacher was God!

In today’s world, the pending release of the latest violent computer game creates queues of thousands of children and adults outside high street shops, eagerly, even excitedly and enthusiastically waiting for the launch, reported on the national news, alongside the main world news, as though it is as important. This is directly promoting these dangerous games. Children see this propensity and become transfixed. Many teachers, as well as police officers and other professionals, can be found amongst those queuing. If teachers are buying these games, and as I have heard, even swapping them with their students, then things are already out of control? I also heard that a large number of game addicts take the week off to play these games, solidly, the week after they are released! I met one teacher who did just that!

The companies that produce these violent computer games have a mandate to design games to evoke the atrocities of terrorism!

However, intelligent parents who are struggling to come to terms with the demise of their children’s childhood, take the appropriate and intelligent stance to protect their children. We have a ‘straw-clutching’ government that will carry out their usual habit of jumping in when it is all too late, to save childhood, and when society has already entered the abyss. We are used to learning the hard way! Children’s welfare doesn’t seem to be important, and there is no wonder we have dramatically saturated mental health problems in this country. Is anything more important than money to those who lead us? A youth leader on a popular weekly television programme stated very clearly that when youngsters watched such games in his youth clubs, they went outside and demonstrated aggressive and hyperactive behaviour. He is absolutely clear about the effects. So am I!