I saw this link posted on Twitter today: Keeping violent media away from boys could be a bad idea
This article is kind of like some horoscopes–through the vague connections it makes, you can see that it fits in your own life, somewhat. After reading the first few paragraphs, I couldn’t help but make the connection between what it was talking about, and my own life. I’ve had videogames in my life since I was about six years old (1988), and didn’t get into “violent” video games until about middle school (1997). Violent video games at the time were pretty bad–we still had Grand Theft Auto (the first one), and plenty of first person shooters, but they’ve only escalated in gruesome imagery since then. The reason being is that the core-gaming audience has grown up with the industry. The demand for more realistic and gut-wrenching games has kept a certain sect of the gaming industry pumping out more and more violent games, pushing the barrier each time. Now, all this time that I was playing videogames, I was doing really well in school–A’s and B’s consistently, with little effort, but I can’t help but think that was more a product of my upbringing, than escaping to a violent fantasy world. Let it be noted, that I didn’t play violent videogames exclusively, but, at least one was always in the mix of my current videogame collection.
“…boys relate to violence, no matter what their background is,” the article claims, and I have to believe that is true on most levels, with most boys. It seems to be one of those ingrained pieces of our genome, that allows us to be more tolerant to acts of violence, and at some times, desire to see violence acted out through media. The threshold at which my wife turns away from the TV is much lower than my own, but that seems to also resonate through our environment. Boys and girls alike are told, throughout their upbringing, that boys are gross, and it’s understood that they have more violent tendencies. That doesn’t mean that a girl cannot have the same tendency, or that a girl is pre-programmed to turn away from certain violent imagery–sometimes I think they have better sense to do so. I often wonder, at a very personal level, whether or not playing games like the iconic Grand Theft Auto series, or the more current Left 4 Dead zombie-slaying-fest, are making me more numb to violence in the real-world. When I see violence in the news, of course I feel empathy towards the victims and their families, but, I often wonder if, in the absense of videogames, if I’d feel *more* empathetic, or sympathetic? Are games hardening me, in how I respond to *real* human suffering? Maybe at a very small level, they have.
Back to the article, has violent media made me a better student? Did virtual violence make me the learner that I am today? Did they make me successful? No, and I guess that’s not exactly what the article was talking about, but, even at its base argument–do violent videogames help boys focus in school? I don’t think that’s it. I think videogames, as a reward for putting in the time to do my homework, and making sure I prepared for my tests, was a great personal-strategy of mine to keep me excelling, and it didn’t matter if the game was violent, or otherwise. If I got enjoyment out of the game, it was enough of a carrot to keep me motivated to get my work done. Not to mention the motivation of going to college, and getting a career that I wanted 
