A few days ago, my eyebrows rose as I read
an email we received from a woman who plays online video
games. The National Institute on Media and the Family gets
lots of messages from serious gamers, but this one stood
out from the rest. Her message lamented that most of the
mature content online games she plays are overrun with kids
"even late at night."
This woman doesn't seem to have anything against children.
In fact, her message demonstrates genuine concern for kids
and their wellbeing. Her problem is with the way young gamers
often conduct themselves during online play. According to
her, "their play is more aggressive" and they
speak (via text or with microphones) more rudely to other
players, often using "derogatory slurs."
Other online gamers back up her story. Virtually all of
them I've asked can recall encountering a clearly underage
gamer using blue language - sometimes even hate speech -
and playing outside of the bounds of online etiquette. And
after poking around a few video gaming message boards, I
can confirm that our emailer isn't the only one speaking
out about underage gamers. One poster on the Gamespot forum
even suggested the game-oriented Internet sites "really
need to start separating by age."
The whole dilemma reminded me of another story I had just
read, this one about the increasingly serious issue of cyberbullying.
A special issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health last
year included studies showing that between 10 and 34 percent
of kids have been harassed via the Internet or a mobile
phone - and those numbers seem to be on the rise. But more
disheartening than the increase in incidents is the increasingly
sophisticated methods cyberbullies use.
These days most kids have access to digital cameras, mobile
phones and high-speed Internet connections. And while these
things can be great tools for learning and creativity, they
can also be violent and cruel in the hands of a cyberbully.
Fake MySpace pages, explicitly photoshopped school photos,
and YouTube posts of real fights are just three of the many
common techniques of cyberbullies.
In both cases - cyberbullying and aggressive online play
- I suspect most kids don't understand how poorly they are
behaving. Cyberbullies often don't realize how hurtful their
pranks are. And I suspect a lot of young online players
(who shouldn't be on adult sites anyway) don't understand
that their rudeness ruins the game for everyone. A growing
body of psychological research shows we just don't take
other people into account as much when they're not in front
of us.
So what should parents do? Here are four tips:
Talk to your kids about how important good
etiquette is in the real and the virtual world.
Find some examples - together - of reports
of cyberbullying or bad online behavior and talk about
what they mean.
Check in to see how it's going online and
how others are treating your kids.
Enforce a zero tolerance policy. Bad behavior
equals suspension of computer privileges.
David Walsh, Ph.D. is the founder of the MediaWise
Movement, a program of the National Institute on Media and
the Family (www.mediawise.org).
His latest book, No: Why Kids - of All Ages - Need to Hear
It and Ways Parents Can Say It (Free Press) is available
in bookstores.
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