Recently, I have
seen several reports suggesting, as if this should come
as a surprise, that kids love playing M-rated video games.
Of course kids love M-rated games. There isn't a parent
living outside a cave who doesn't know that. The games are
exciting, fast, flashy and realistic.
And thanks to these games, a lot of kids, mostly boys, think
it's a harmless rush to decapitate the other guy, set cops
on fire, and kick prostitutes to death after having sex.
In one of the stories I read, Gaming magazine publisher
Andy McNamara insinuates that anyone worrying about kids
playing games that mock tragedy is an alarmist whacko who
sees the games as the work of the devil. Simply put: he's
wrong.
As last year came to an end, the National Institute on Media
and the Family released the Ninth Annual Video and Computer
Game Report Card in Washington. This year, as in years past,
we called on the industry to step up its efforts to keep
M-rated games out of kids' hands.
For years we have decried kids' access to adult games. In
response, some conscientious corporations like Best Buy
and Target have instituted responsible policies protecting
young buyers. The reason the industry has made reforms is
because a growing body of research suggests violent games
are harmful to kids.
Research, literally hundreds of studies, on the connection
between screen violence and youth aggression has been conducted
since the 1950s. Organizations like the American Medical
Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics have
gone on record stating that the scientific evidence clearly
shows a cause-effect relationship between virtual violence
and real-life aggression. An article in the prestigious
journal Science showed that the strength of the evidence
linking media violence to youth aggression is stronger than
the evidence linking lead poisoning with mental retardation
and more definitive than the case linking secondhand smoke
with cancer. Scientifically speaking, the notion that media
violence harms kids is an open and shut case.
As I have written in these pages before, the teen brain
is not the finished product we thought it was. It is still
a work in progress, a major construction zone. The latest
brain research shows that violent video games activate the
anger center of the teenage brain while dampening the brain's
"conscience."
It's not that every teen who plays Grand Theft Auto:
San Andreas is going to go out and pick up an Uzi. The
real impact is much more subtle. The worst effect of ultra
violent, sexually exploitative video games is the culture
of disrespect they create. Whoever tells the stories defines
the culture. What do we think the effect is when our kids'
storytellers are violence simulators that glorify gang culture,
celebrate brutality, extol crudeness and trivialize violence
toward women?
David Walsh, Ph.D. is the founder of the
MediaWise Movement, a program of the National Institute
on Media and the Family (www.mediafamily.org).
His latest book, Why Do They Act That Way? A Survival Guide
to the Adolescent Brain for You and Your Teen is available
at all major booksellers.
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