Why Kids Are So Different by Jay Goodman

Sometimes I ask myself if technology has been a blessing or a curse for America. Without a doubt technology has helped us in many ways, lights, cars, planes, heat, air conditioning, have all been a blessing, along with many other things, but because of how technology has made some things so simple, that it has also caused people to become so spoiled that it seems like they don’t want to do anything that takes effort. I have been breaking down what I believe has been the reason people over the last thirty to forty years are so different and I have asked myself over and over, how the men and women could be so different. As I look at the men around me, listen to their conversations, I am surprised at what I see and hear. I have showed some different things in my last four chapters about why everything began to change when it did. Drugs without a doubt have been the biggest problem. Since the big drug boom in the 1960’s, it has eaten away at our country like a deadly cancer. It has been the number one reason everything else I’ve written about has happened. Drugs are why all of the state and federal prisons across the United States are full to capacity. There’s a reason for America changing and we are starting to see why.

Now there is something else we are starting to see play out in our country, and it’s getting worse every day, violence. Yes, there has always been people that were violent, but not to the level it is today. Has anyone ever looked at the news lately, because everywhere across the United States, American cities are seeing assaults and murders going up each year. It’s not just criminals robbing and stealing, we are seeing young kids and teenagers committing brutal acts of violence. Children as young as twelve have taken a gun to school and shot others in their class. Think about that, twelve! This boy was still in grade school, and this is not something new, it’s been going on for the last thirty years. I am sure everyone remembers the scenes that played out on national TV back in the 1990’s when two boys went to their high school in Columbine, Colorado, killed dozens of their classmates and teachers, then killed themselves. It left our whole country in shock. Once again these were just teenagers, not criminals, but this has happened over and over again since then. Here it is, twenty-seven years since Columbine and this same scenario just keeps playing out all over our country, places where you would think something like this would never happen. Colorado, Kentucky, Texas, and Michigan just to name a few. Small little towns with kids who’ve never been in trouble in their lives. We have also seen kids or young men kill their own mom and dad, people robbing and shooting people for no reason, even after they give the robber what they want, he still shoots them.

Look at how many people get shot and killed over their car every year. Has anyone ever really thought about why these young kids have committed such horrible acts of violence? I look at these young men and I cannot help but see a person that has no understanding what life, love or happiness really means. They don’t have a clue what empathy really means, truthfully, they have no idea what the word means, but why? As I have talked about in my last chapters, the young men today have been raised without any type of discipline whatsoever. They have become a generation of doing as little as possible or doing nothing at all. Reading, working out, doing anything constructive is out of the question, but one thing they love is video games. Like I said at the start of this chapter, technology has been a blessing and a curse, the curse has definitely been video games. I know video games have been the cause for the spike in violence across our country.

I’m sure a lot of people reading this may think that’s crazy, but let’s take a look at what happens to young kids after playing video games for long periods of time. As I’m sure everyone knows and understands that young kids are very impressionable, how they think, act and talk will have a lot to do with their upbringing. If they have been taught to be respectful, had discipline and structure in their lives, there is a greater chance they will express that as they grow up. Also, how children are taught about life will have a big impact on how they view things. Now I have seen children six- or seven-years old playing video games, has anyone seen the games kids are playing today? I have been in prison for over seventeen years and I remember seeing kids playing games like Mortal Combat, in this game kids are fighting to the death, people were bleeding in the video. Then there’s Grand Theft Auto, in this one, kids are learning how to steal cars, shooting and killing police officers. Call of Duty is very realistic, it’s nothing but killing. A friend of mine just told me, in Grand Theft Auto, the players are killing the police and they can also pick up prostitutes, have sex with them, then kill her. To everyone reading this, what do you believe these types of games due to a young kid or teenager after years of playing them? As I already said, young kids are impressionable, how they are treated and what you put in their minds have a huge impact on how they act. These videos are teaching kids how to fight, steal and kill. When I was a kid, we were taught to trust and respect police officers, now kids are being taught to kill them. Between gangster rap music and video games like these, is there any wonder why the young people are more violent today? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand what’s been going on. The craziness of this whole situation is if I can see it, I know others do too.

Everything I have written about in my last few chapters is a fact. The young people over the last thirty to forty years have not been raised to respect anything. They have no respect for others or themselves. In their minds all that matters is getting high and getting rich. I have listened to many people in here talk about their own moms and dads as if they were nothing to them, as I have said, they have no empathy, no morals and no self-discipline. Our modern culture proclaims with all its force, what you do and what you have are the most important things. This is a lie, it is a deception that has led whole generations down the well-trodden path toward lives of quiet desperation. It is a lie that is reinforced with such regularity that the young have grown to believe it, at least subconsciously and have shaped their lives around it. I learned. A long time ago that the old cliché my mom and dad used to tell me, money isn’t everything, was 100% true, I made my own saying about money a long time ago, money is only paper with numbers on it. I tell that to people around me all the time trying to get them to realize the truth, but this whole culture that’s been enamored with gangster rap and the vision of living the life of what they believe in their mind life is. Between this trash and growing up playing video games which teach them to steal, rape and kill police officers, is it any wonder we are seeing what we are in America?