Society needs to take a long, hard look at itself

Okay, here we go again.

Easter Sunday 2011, Daniel Bartlam murdered his own mother with a hammer, then set fire to her room to try and cover up his crime. If that wasn’t bad enough, he was only 14 when he did this. Even worse, it seems he caught wind of the idea from an episode of Coronation Street.

Now, whatever I have to say after this does NOT take away from the fact that this is hands down horrific. No one should have to go through the trauma the Bartlam family has gone through, and what I have to say is in no way intended to disparage anybody involved in this case.

Right, that said, a murder influenced by Coronation Street? Has anyone heard the calls for Coronation Street to be banned? Of course not, that’s ludicrous.

Imagine if it were a murder influenced, by, say, Grand Theft Auto. You can imagine the outcry that would occur. There would be calls to get the game off the shelves, citing it to be too vicious and bloody for our children to be exposed to.

It sounds like a strange comparison to make, but I thought of it as soon as I heard of the case. The most obvious example to use here is the Columbine massacre of 1999. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were similar to Bartlam in that they were mentally damaged, and embarked on pre meditated murder while in their teens. The main difference is that while Bartlam was influenced by a soap, the Columbine killers were supposedly influenced by the game Doom. So, video games are again vilified after the Columbine tragedy, but Coronation Street gets off scott free? I’m sorry, but this doesn’t make sense.

The Coronation Street episode that Bartlam drew inspiration from.

Obviously I’m not saying the script writers behind the soap are in any way responsible for what happened. It’s ridiculous to even suggest that. But why is it that no one has even examined the possibility? If we follow the same logic as the video game naysayers, then the soaps have the potential to influence young people to do horrible things too, right?

Wrong. What this incident has highlighted is the broken idea that video games can turn ordinary children into violent criminals. What actually happens is that ANY kind of media can influence those who are already suffering for mental illnesses that would give them the tendency to commit these crimes. There is a huge, huge difference.

It’s not the media that failed Bartlam’s mother, or the Columbine victims. It’s the lack of care given to the perpetrator’s mental states. The Telegraph reports that Bartlam was clearly unstable before he committed murder, having suffered several episodes in school and undertaking counselling. Despite the evidence to the contrary, he was declared as ‘mentally stable’. If they had found otherwise, would his mother still be alive today? We can’t speculate on that, but one hopes she would have been.

I personally believe that these incidents happen because of society’s inability to own up and deal with problems before they occur. Instead, awful crimes happen and then rather than admitting their wrongs, society points to the easiest scapegoat they can find. In today’s age, that’s video games. It frightens me because this means we keep deflecting attention away from the true problem at hand, rather than attempting to solve it. How long before we implode?

'Journalism' strikes again

Oh dear, look what the Daily Mail have gone and done.

If you’ve not yet (and I’m writing this on Monday, so I’ll be surprised if you haven’t), it turns out they printed an article called ‘Stoned with tiredness: Generation of children are becoming zombies because of late-night gaming sessions, claims charity’. Yep, it’s another anti gaming piece, but the real kicker is it’s turned out that they have completely fabricated anti gaming quotes and put them in the mouth of an actually pro gaming charity worker.

The article strives to point out that gaming is tiring out children so they come into school looking ‘stoned’ from tiredness, using an interview from Radio Devon where Kids and Media social worker Robert Hart-Fletcher actually stood up for gaming as a way to help kids connect in a relatively safe environment. The following quotes, he claims, never came from him and beefjack.com have examined the evidence and back him up on this:

When I see something like this it makes me want to reach through the monitor and shake whoever was responsible for the latest bit of scaremongering claptrap. I really have no idea why the media have such a vendetta against gaming, and let’s be honest, that’s a whole other conversation to be had later. If gaming isn’t creating unstable killers, though, it’s warping our children’s’ fragile minds. Explain, that, Daily Mail and friends.

I wonder whether it’s all come from the recent culture of trying to protect kids from any kind of threat around them. After all, we’re pelted with stories about how they can’t play outside anymore for fear of predators, how they can’t be protected from the evils of the internet, and how we’re killing them all slowly with fast food and TV. Video games are just another horror to add to the list. Because it’s a newer threat, though, it’s treated as one of the worst offenders!

The problem is, outside of the gaming community, games just look like blood splattered murder simulators. What used to be a ‘kid’s thing’ has now grown up, but no one seems to have realised that yet. Instead, it becomes the easiest scapegoat to use when atrocities happen, most famously perhaps Doom after the Columbine Massacre. It’s just ridiculous!

What the Daily Mail has tried to say here is that kids are becoming addicted to video games (especially Call of Duty and FIFA, which are for some reason singled out). I’m sure for a small subsection of children that’s true, and needs to be investigated. For the vast majority however, what’s happening is a lack of decent parenting.

There, I said it. As a parent, you have the responsibility of keeping an eye on what your children are playing, and how long for. It only takes minimal effort. First off, if you’re letting your ten year old play Call of Duty then you have failed miserably. It’s not hard to check if a game’s suitable. There are (admittedly confusing) age ratings on the box, and if you’re not sure, you can quickly look up the content online or hell, even ask a sales assistant, as they usually have a good idea of what’s going on now.

As for the tiredness angle? Turn the console or PC off. TURN IT OFF. You’re the adult, you have the final say in what your child does, as you arguably know what is best for them. If you can’t do that, then what else are you letting your child do? You can’t call yourself a good parent if you’re incapable of laying down the law for their benefit.

This is what the whole issue boils down to. No one wants to take responsibility for their children’s behaviour. It’s too difficult to instil discipline into our offspring, so we offload the blame onto today’s media, crying that violent videogames are addicting our children. Outlets like the Daily Mail are equally to blame, running with the blame and periodically releasing scaremongering articles like this one to reel in the readers. It’s tasteless and pathetic, and above all horrible, horrible journalism. It has to stop.