Decease… Death… Die…

After his capture, Devin Moore is reported to have told police “life is like a video game. Everybody’s gotta die sometime”. Moore is awaiting trial in criminal court. A suit filed by the families of two of his victims claims that Moore acted out a scenario found in Grand Theft Auto. You, the player, are a street thug trying to take over the city. In one scenario, you can enter a police precinct, steal a uniform, free a convict from jail, escape by shooting police, and flee in a squad car.

Hamner: – And now I’ve got the entire police force after me. You have to eliminate all resistance.

Nicholas Hamner, a law student at the University of Alabama, demonstrated Grand Theft Auto for us. Like millions of gamers, the overwhelming majority, he says he plays it simply for fun.

– So, you’re already shot about 8 cops inside before you got out the door.

– Looked about like that.

David Walsh:

– And now you’re stealing a police car?

David Walsh, a child psychologist who’s co-authored a study connecting violent video games to physical aggression, says the link can be explained in part by pioneering brain research recently done at the National Institute of Health, which shows that the teenage brain is not fully developed.

-Does repeated exposure to violent video games have more of an impact on a teenager than it does on an adult?

– It does, and that’s largely because the teenage brain is different from the adult brain. The impulse control center of the brain, the part of the brain that enables us to think ahead, consider consequences, manage urges, that’s the part of the brain right behind our forehead, called the prefrontal cortex. That’s under construction during the teenage years. In fact, the wiring of that is not completed until the early 20s.

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