Pupils taught using violent game-The Government Still Have NOT Learned

Stills from violent video game Grand Theft Auto are being used to teach primary school children about violence. The 18-rated game is being used as part of a police-backed pilot scheme in primary schools in Merseyside to deter youngsters from aggressive behaviour. Under the scheme, 10 and 11-year-olds are shown stills from the games, which allow players to beat up prostitutes. These are used alongside real-life images to prompt a discussion on what is good, bad, real and unreal. Under the Get Real scheme run by the charity Support After Murder and Manslaughter (Samm) and Merseyside Police, children are given trading cards from the video game alongside real-life images of parents arguing or of drunkenness. Clips from the Tom and Jerry-satirising cartoon Itchy and Scratchy, from the Simpsons, are also used alongside role-playing in the Home Office-funded project. Pupils are then asked to differentiate between good, bad, real and unreal life events. One of its founders, Gaynor Bell, who lost two children in violent deaths, said the project was created to try to turn children away from violence at a young age. Despite the game's 18-rated status, she said many children would have played it, and similar games, at home with elder siblings, and that they risked being de-sensitised to the violence involved. She added: "They are shown a picture of a man rolling over a car and you can clearly see it has a machine gun.

"It's basically telling them that it's not real life, but in these games they do look real."

She added: "Children have very short attention spans so they need something that keeps them interested, preferably busy with their hands and it has to be something that allows them to be proactive." The workshops are run in schools with a police officer, the class teacher and two members of Samm and are subsequently followed up with further work. Samm works with young offenders, and those at risk of offending, to try to turn them away from crime. A spokesman for Liverpool City Council said: "Almost any media can be edited to be educational and if the material already attracts children's interest, it can have a greater impact on them. "This may well be depicting knife-using car thieves as the selfish morons that they are - which of course we would welcome." (my view)-What do you think is going to happen next?........that's right,just like sex education being thought at a young age in school...ordered by the gov of course.......the kids will see these pictures and just like the sex ed being taught and shown.......they will be curious and commit crime....like sex being taught...what happened?...........2 10 yr old boys raped an 8yr old girl..there have been a few other cases to.........its all getting worse and its the governments that turning OUR kids into criminals,rapists,ect

Boy buys big in Farmville

A 12 year-old British boy has used his mother’s credit card to make purchases exceeding £900 in Facebook’s popular agriculture game, Farmville. In fairness, the lad plugged £288 of his own savings into this ill-advised investment. The rest of it was all on his mum’s plastic, though, and was spent completely without her knowledge:

“The first use of my card was on 14 March,” she tells The Guardian.

“I discovered it on the 29th and the card was stopped at that point. Any transactions after that date were already in the system, so what I thought was a £427 spend turned into £625 over the next few days.” And the rest, as they say, is history – just like the boy’s chances of ever being allowed back on the home computer again. To add insult to injury Facebook, which hosts the game, has cancelled the boy’s account too. Perhaps that’s because, at 12 years old, he’s actually too young to be playing it. Meanwhile it appears that the possibility of a refund from either the credit card company or the game’s makers is slim, since the credit card was supposed to be the mother’s responsibility. However HSBC, the card issuers, has said it may consider reimbursing the woman if she decides to file criminal charges against her son. “Obviously the idea of a stupid farm simulation jeopardising his future earnings is not something that I want to consider,” is all she had to say about that proposition.

So how did the lad himself account for his wayward spending spree? “...they had brought out good stuff that I wanted.”

Blimey, kids eh? However the biggest irony in all of this is that Farmville is mostly free to play, with users purchasing extra items only if they want them. But therein lie many lessons about the dangers of supposedly free applications – as well as the pitfalls of leaving minors alone with their mum’s purse!(my view)-I think people are REALLY stupid about "buying"these NON-REAL items but virtual ITEMS....to build up a GAME...that's it........its a fucking game losers....facebook should be sued over this,playing on peoples addictive stupidity at gaming........gaming is a free to play zone on sites.....you should not pay to play..that's idiotic and selfish