Are Some Of Our Young Becoming More Sadistically Violent, Than They Ever Were In The Past?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2309431/Linda-Doran-Judges-verdict-mother-eldest-son-jail-murder-caged-kicking-tramp-death.html

What makes three youngsters attack and kill a lone man just for the fun of it, or was their future mapped out for them as soon as they came into the world?

The two Brothers also had another brother already in jail for murder, and their 'Mother' was also jailed because she had given the pair a false alibi to shield them from detectives.

[jim360]

One of these days I'll work out when I am being funny...

[andres]

Sharingan,I thought this post was about children in the uk. The link you posted deals mainly with children from other countries.

[jim360]

Yes, because obviously in the past all problems of child criminals were confined to other countries...

[andres]

Never. triggerhippy . What's that got to do with the post.

[jim360]

Earlier on AOG said something along th lines of I couldn't judge the 50s because I was not around then. Likewise, should you be judging video games if you have not played them?

[andres]

Jim360, Read my last sentence again. I didn't say I had first hand experience but I do know lots of kids who play them. I can't play the violin but it doesn't stop me enjoying listening to good music played on it . You are being nit-picking!

[jim360]

Here's an example:

"In the 1950s increasing youth crime was largely attributed to a decline in family cohesion following the war, and to increasing consumer affluence..."

http://www.historyextra.com/feature/youth-culture-and-crime-what-can-we-learn-history

The article itself is unsourced - perhaps just a common line among the papers of the time?

One thing I will say is that from what I can make out a lot of child crime in the Victorian Age seems to be theft and pickpocketing rather than acts of violence. Apart from one or two exceptional cases.

[LazyGun]

The point, surely, is that we should not be demonising a generation based upon nothing more than sensationalist headlines of what is an extreme instance, and personal recollection of times decades ago. Anecdote is not data, and personal recollection scores only slightly higher than "what some bloke down the pub said" as a reliable ,objective measure.

The narrative that is in danger of being painted is that "youth" is becoming more feral and savage with each passing generation - and the cause of that, depending on who you read or listen to, is TV, Movies, Video Games, Lack of Parental Responsibility, or immigrants and an imported gang culture.

I think there is scant to no evidence to support this narrative as being objectively true, however much it might satisfy the observations of some individuals...

[Kromovaracun]

There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that violent video games have *anything* to do with violent behaviour. At all.

Olson & Kutner, two psychologists at Harvard University, assessed the evidence available. They consulted neuroscientists about the supposed evidence of brain stimulation, they conducted polls on the usage of video games, they conducted research into teen violence. They found no relationship whatsoever between violent behaviour and violent media. None.

As a young person - a member of the first generation which can plausibly call itself lifelong users of the internet and of videogames - I am sick of people who have no idea what they are talking about making badly-informed speculations about the supposed effects of video games on their consumers. It can't be justified anecdotally, or by any substantive, well-scrutinised research of any kind. I would hazard a guess that at least half the ABers who blame video games for this kind of revolting act have never picked up a controller.

Do not presume to lay this atrocity at the door of the video games industry.