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Contributions will be
added to the top of this collection as I receive them . .
Date: Sun, 4 Sep From Susan W For many years now, "violence
in video games" has been argued as being the stimulant for a number of
violent offences. To be honest, I thought that was ridiculous the first
time I heard it. Of course, I've played video games all my life and never
once been tempted to recreate anything I experienced in a game. However, recently I've been
giving new consideration to what sort of effects TV in general is having
on our world. I was in a chat room for the reality TV show Big Brother
6 this week, and I was happy to see a number of people supporting the same
contestants I was. But further into the conversation, I was becoming more
and more sickened by the opinions my fellow viewers were holding. Aside
from name calling that I wouldn't dare to repeat, as these are words I've
never even uttered myself! Some of the things that upset me the most were
along the lines of: "I hope they air it when the Friendship" (a nickname
for a particular group of contestants) "finally sees how much we hate them.
I can't wait to see the look on their faces." What sort of society have
we come to where IN MASSES we are hoping to see other people suffer. Now.. I enjoy this show.
I'm sure it falls under the same sort of allure as gossip or tabloids has
(in other words nothing very morally substantial). I can't explain it. But I know that
I take it for what it is--cheap entertainment. What troubles me,
however, is what sort of impact shows like this will have on our children.
Look at the world around us and all the corruption in it. And here we're
promoting all these reality TV programs that encourage contestants to backstab,
lie, cheat, steal, and basically do WHATEVER THEY HAVE TO.. for MONEY!
We're rewarding this?? Again, I can take it for
what it is, and not try to emulate it. But children are being brought up
in this world? What happened to friendly cartoons? Disney movies without
all the adult humour that we *assume* is going over our kids' heads? What
happened to the Cosby show?? I loved that show. :) And each show
coupled good writing and humour with a LESSON. A real lesson. Like don't
steal.. or don't cheat at pinocle. ;) Anyway, there's a hundred
more examples I'm sure, but it gave me a fright really. With all the corruption
there already is in the world, what are we setting ourselves up for? I realize
now I'm going to be one of those over-zealous parents that won't
let my kids watch what they want without me giving it a once over, or surf
the net without me there. And I'll encourage them to do things that don't involve
technology, like skip!? or play marbles? haha. They'll hate me. But hopefully
they'll appreciate it too someday. I dunno. I hope that some of the values
we SHOULD be teaching our kids will start to come back to the media. We
can start to overturn some of the mistakes we're making as a world on whole,
but not until we start setting the RIGHT examples. Susan
