Play’s Republic

A quick though in response to Soyoun’s posting (and Rob’s comment), as well as Garrison’s posting on “M”-rated games.

Yesterday’s events shocked the nation and flooded the media.  People are searching for answers and, already, many of the same arguments heard post-Columbine are being voiced again.  Today I’ve had conversations with at least two acquaintances  who blame the incidents on the presence of violent video games in our culture.  I will be interested to see what cultural criticisms come out in the coming weeks and days, as a profile of the killer is created by our media system.

As Garrison mentioned in his post, a lot of work is being done to conduct studies on the availability of violent games to the nation’s youth.  He suggests that the resources behind these surveys could be better utilized.  This is the point that I keep returning to when thinking about the possible debates that will ensue.  What is the dialog we should be having and how can we bring these more salient points to the nation’s attention?