I saw a deer today

When I think of violence in media, first off, I think of video games, because I work in a video game store and I'm required, legally, to have an adult's consent when selling rated M games to minors, and that happens a lot.

As I've mentioned before, I have a bit of a video-game-related bent on things so I might as well start there. Now, I've occasionally wondered why almost every game has combat as a core mechanic. I mean, there are exceptions that rely on escape or maybe running wind into flowers to grab petals, but for the most part, combat is a core mechanic, and something most games are judged on as much as (or more than) they're judged on aesthetic or writing.

I would watch that for a minute or so and then leave it playing while you read the rest of this entry. It's really a beautiful game.

So then are people really being desensitized to violence because of video games? Well, maybe. It's certainly expected of us in video games, and there's definitely a satisfaction to absolutely slaughtering someone. A lot of games display this moderately realistically (though usually with a bit more spectacle) with people emitting blood when they die as most people would if you slashed them with a sword. But what does that really mean? Does it mean I'm going to go out, buy a sword, and kill someone with it because I saw it on Skyrim? Obviously not. Killing people is wrong. Being desensitized to violence doesn't suddenly make you into a sociopath. I would never hurt another living being. That said, these Falmer on the other hand totally deserve it.

There are at least a couple professions I can think of that require desensitization to violence and those are military and medicine. You have to be able to stay calm under situations that would reduce some people to hysterical messes. You don't want your doctor saying "Oh god, so much blood." when you enter the ER. You want your doctor to calmly explain to you what's wrong and what can be done to fix it. I think the military actually uses video games and other simulations (that are probably not so different from Call of Duty) to purposefully desensitize people to violence. So what exactly are we worrying about?

Are we worrying that people not being emotionally traumatized by violence might make them aggressive? Well, personally, I think if it would, then you're too young to be playing these types of games. I strongly believe in the ESRB and it's rating system, and I have talked to parents and convinced them not to buy games for their young children. Of course I've had parents to say "Well, if I didn't buy it, they'd just play it at Jimmy's house" or "Yeah, that's fine, I don't care," and both of them are sad, but I've also had parents say "Let's go look for a game rated T" or "My daughter is a mature young woman and I trust her to make the right decisions regarding the games she plays," both of which are wonderful reactions. Like I said, even if I am desensitized to violence, that doesn't erase my concepts of right and wrong. At worst, it'll cause me to react less emotionally if I'm ever in a violent situation.

That said, I'm not 100% sure that the games I play are really enough to desensitize me to much. I don't really play shooters or games that use gore as a spectacle (I'm looking at you, Mortal Kombat), so the over-the-top intense violence rarely enters my PC and/or console. That said, Skyrim is a pretty bloody game. Not only did you kill a lot of things, but there were multiple instances of seeing bloody skeletons and corpses and sometimes their flesh was implied to be eaten. It was a really gross game at times, and the first several times I saw human bones covered in blood (or was it leftover muscle tissue?)  my stomach turned. That said, as the game went on, they showed up a bunch and eventually I stopped caring.

A few days later I was driving to a friend's house and I saw a deer on the side of the road. I was driving on a gravel road at the time, the kind that doesn't often get cleared of roadkill and this was particular deer was dead and highly decomposed. I've tried to block out the details, but this was every bit as bad as those skeletons in Skyrim, except this was in real life. I remember being really shaken and disturbed and honestly a little distracted on the rest of the drive.

There is a huge difference between being desensitized to textures on a wireframe model than being desensitized to real life that's happening in front of you, and I honestly think if the deer hadn't disturbed me as much as it did, I probably would've been driving more safely. It's hard to find good research about this issue for several reasons. First, the media loves any conclusion that could cause an upset. That's why you have to tune in at 11 to find out if wearing high heels will cause you to get cancer. Second, people are terribly biased. When I was doing research for this post, I came across this article and there was a point where one of the scientists behind the study said "Surprisingly, the amygdalas in the subjects as well as in the control group were similarly stimulated." Were they expecting the people who played video games to not react at all? Did they expect sociopaths with no reaction to other humans in pain? Video games are such a maligned form of media that people like to blame them for society's woes. Because of that, I really think that unbiased science is going to be hard to come by. People are going to be looking to either valiantly defend the world from video games or valiantly defend video games from the world and there is no valor in science (there is, however, science in science, and that's much more cool to focus on).

In short, I don't think desensitization is an innately bad thing; I don't think video games desensitize (at least not me personally), and if you play video games and now want to shoot people, you need to tell your mother and get some professional help.