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I have been playing computer games from the age of 5. From the age of around 7, I have been playing violent video games. When I was 2 I stayed up to watch The 7 Samurais, while my parents slept. I have been subjected to a lot of media violence. I like the movie Man Bites Dog, about a serial killer who is followed by a documentary team, filming his elaborate killings and murdering of children, women and the elderly. I play violent computer games daily now, and I think they're great.
But show me real violence or real pain, and my blood turns to ice. I have seen a person fall headfirst into the asphalt curled forward with the top of his head hitting the pavement - he was having a seizure, and while calling the ambulance I was sick to my stomach. The sound the skull made, the sounds he made, the blood on the asphalt - very very disturbing. My face was all white afterwards, and I had to take the rest of the day off at work to gather myself.
My reasoning is, that people know whether what they see is real or not. Even kids. Now, something can of course be made so realistically that you will be in doubt, and in X number of years computers will be able to create images so real that you can't tell the difference. When that time comes I will change my opinion about it. If the mind can't decipher if the images it sees are real or fake, it will be disturbed. Thankfully it isn't so yet, but when we get there, with completely realistic virtual reality and all, I think we will have a problem.
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