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Parents across the world, rejoice! Dr. Phil has yet again saved the day…or maybe not. Last night, Dr. Phil paid a visit to Larry King Live, and had a few things to say about the cause of the horrific incident at Virginia Tech. His enemy: video games.
Now video games have been debated as being the source for violence in young people for quite some time. Even the military uses video games to simulate war-like events for soldiers. While many children and teenagers play these games, have they led to more violent habits than my generation who watched the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, like the Columbine shooters, or to my parent's generation who played "Cowboys and Indians, like the shooter at the University of Texas?" A lot of researchers would probably disagree with me and say that evidence supports that children who play video games today are more violent than ever before.
But let's get back to Dr. Phil. He addressed the shootings at Virginia Tech by saying:
The problem is we are programming these people as a society. You cannot tell me - common sense tells you - that if these people are playing video games where they're on a mass killing spree in a video game, it's glamorized on the big screen, it's become part of the fiber of our society. You take that and mix it with a psychopath, a sociopath, or someone suffering from mental illness, add in a dose of rage, the suggestability is just too high. And we're going to have to start dealing with that. We're going to have to start addressing those issues and recognizing that the mass murderers of tomorrow are the children of today that are being programmed with this massive violence overdose.
It is understandable that Dr. Phil is frustrated and wants to send a message to American's during a very sensitive time. However, it doesn't make a very strong point when we really don't know that much about the Virginia Tech shooter, Cho Seung-Hui. Yes, we may know that he was suffering from a mental illness, but do we know that he was an avid video game player?
Dr. Phil should reevaluate his diagnosis.
