[sanjuro]

http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_6300370

Study links computer denial to Columbine
By Katy Human Denver Post Staff Writer
Article Last Updated: 07/04/2007 11:14:08 PM MDT

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold went on a killing rage at Columbine High School in 1999 because they were abruptly denied access to their computers, an Oregon psychiatrist says in a published study.

The two young men relied on the virtual world of computer games to express their rage and to spend time, and cutting them off in 1998 sent them into crisis, said Jerald Block, a researcher and psychiatrist in Portland.

"Very soon thereafter - a couple of days - they started to plan the actual attack," Block said.

Block published his research in the current issue of the American Journal of Forensic Psychiatry, a peer- reviewed journal.

The paper is likely to generate debate, said Cheryl Olson, co-director of the Center for Mental Health and Media at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

"Two-thirds of middle- school boys play M-rated games regularly," Olson said. M-rated games contain intense violence or sexual content.

"They're not turning kids into killing machines," Olson said. "The evidence just isn't there."

Block sifted through thousands of pages of documents released by Columbine investigators and said he believes both Harris' and Klebold's parents banned them from their computers after the two were caught breaking into an electrician's van in 1998.

Harris and Klebold had each previously been temporarily kept off computers at school or at home, and after each incident, Block said, the boys' writings or behavior became more violent.

Block said he worries about people immersing themselves so deeply and also about cutting them off cold-turkey.

"How do you pull them out, without triggering homicidal or suicidal behavior?" he asked.

Olson cautioned against over-generalizing from the Columbine records.

After the Colorado rampage, the Secret Service searched for common threads in more than three dozen school shootings, she said.

"The commonalities they found were male gender and either being treated for depression or showing signs of depression," Olson said.

Some of the shooters were good students, some bad; some were bullies, some were bullied; and some played video games, but most did not, she said.

 

[BMXman]

what a bunch of sh!t....D

 

[BussaFrame]

what a bunch of sh!t....D

Agreed.

 

[Silver]

No, lack of video games are to blame for Columbine.

That, and the fact that Jesus apparently didn't give a **** that day to stop 2 homicidal maniacs from killing a bunch of kids. Lazy bastard took 9/11 off too...