Boy stabs infant nephew - PlayStation blamed?

by James Ransom-Wiley { Jul 8th 2005 at 12:30PM }

The headline—"Boy, 11, stabbed baby whose crying spoiled his PlayStation game"—would have you believe otherwise, but for once a tragic story associated with gaming didn't blame pixilated violence and its ability to corrupt the world's youth. Nope, the youngster was playing The Incredibles after all, and while rated "Teen", the boy was driven to stab his baby nephew more out of frustration than learning-by-playing.

So while the headline was concocted to feed the never-ending media frenzy against gaming, the story tells the tale of a young boy struggling in a difficult family situation, unable to control his emotions or comprehend his actions. It's a tragedy, yes—thankfully the infant survived. But luckily, the media isn't insisting that Sony, the PS2, or the Incredibles are at fault. Now if he'd been playing GTA….

[Thanks, JEPrather]

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Coyote @ Dec 18th 2005 9:59PM

Oh god this is going to go badly for rockstar.. Im sure the kid saw the box cover of GTA and it caused him so much mental anguish that 2 months later the memory of it caused him to snap, also you mean they removed the baby stabing from the incredibles?? that was the coolest part of the movie!

OtakuCODE @ Dec 18th 2005 9:59PM

I always wonder how these things find their way to the media. A couple years back I was living with my aunt who was a head nurse at a large teaching hospitals ER. She called me one evening to let me know about a patient that had come in that evening. (she didn't divulge any names, of course) Some guy had tried to get his 17 year old stepson to stop playing Final Fantasy X so that he could play himself. The stepson proceeded to go into the kitchen and get a knife which he then plunged into and clear through the stepdads neck. It was one of those freak occurrances where no blood was spilled, no veins or arteries were hit, etc. But he came into the ER with the knife through his neck anyhow. Not sure if the kid went to jail or what. He certainly should have.

And this 11 year old should be locked up as well. Blame the parents, blame the media, the kid still controls his own body and has to take responsibility for it.

Timmay! @ Dec 18th 2005 9:59PM

If this is the article I remember, the father left the 10 year old to watch his 3 month old brother while the father took a nap. Once again, bad parenting is to blame.

jonathan @ Dec 18th 2005 9:59PM

its not video games that cause these things

its the parents

hes just a f'ed up little spoiled brat who has parents that dont know how to deal with kids

JJG @ Dec 18th 2005 9:59PM

If the media aren't saying that this event was in some part a result of the child's video game habits, then they missed it big. One of the biggest effects of violent video game play is a conflict attribution bias that causes those who play to a) view potential conflicts as violent, and b) resolve conflicts with violence. A particular problem comes from violent T rated and under games that show cartoon violence without realistic consequences. Check the data, the relationship between negative effects and violent video game play is greater than the relationship between lead exposure and negative physiological effects.