An exercise in desensitisation?

"... But you just killed a soldier," I tell my sons and nephew who naturally find fine bonding by staying glued to the TV monitor and go on a shooting spree on their computer game named 'Call of Duty'.

"But they are baddies, German soldiers!" they reply. I retorted, "..they are also somebody's son, husband, brother and father. Somebody is going to grow up without a father and is going to a psychological wreck!"

Before the time when games were on hand held devices, in the late 80s (1989), my house mate who was performing the unenviable lonely but essential anaesthetic service in a district hospital, was a lone wolf in a small town where the siren of the ambulance is the only excitement. To maintain his own sanity, my friend used to periodically visit a gaming shop to have his daily dose of radiation from the consoles of Sega panels. After killing loads of baddies and aliens, he would return rejuvenated, like having a shot in the arm, like back from a vacation, ready to face what may in his next call of duty. He is still doing it now, after all these years. The only difference now is that, with Samsung Galaxy Note II, he can play his Temple Runs and Subway Surfer anywhere anytime. 

The proponents of advancement of gaming industry will boasts that it is bigger than Hollywood and that it improves hand eye coordination and so on. Some even promote it to improve surgical skills in key hole surgery!

But then, the stories of able bodies being transformed to unshaven, unkempt, social outcast, immersed into the stroboscopic lights of the Internet games depending on fast food and pampers to answer biological needs does not augur well to promote it as technology next! Loss in social interactions and desensitisation to gore, blood, violence as well to death makes it a real possibility that this addiction may indeed turn out us to zombies, just like the zombies they intended to kill! Are we heading towards a world where empathy and feeling others' pain like feeling the pain endured by The Lord who sent his only Son to die on the cross to wash the sins of Man? Is the recent apathy towards an accident victim toddler in China testimony to this end?