Video Game Violence: Do Parents Overreact?
Paul Nyhan - Seattle Post-Intelligencer
May 01, 2008
The release of "Grand Theft Auto IV" - complete with lap- dancing strippers and splattering blood - will surely renew the debate about what violent video games are doing to the American family.
But how much do we know about the impact of gaming?
The reality is we don't know enough, often worry about the wrong things, instead of more subtle effects of violent video games, and we ignore benefits, according to Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson, authors of "Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games."
"For most kids and most parents, the bottom-line results of our research can be summed up in a single word: relax," Kutner has said. He and Olson are on the Harvard Medical School faculty.
When parents confront video games, violent or not, they may want to just say no, but a better response can be to start talking and playing before you decide what you want to say.
With a rating for ages 17 and up, "Grand Theft Auto IV" clearly isn't meant for youngsters, and few would support letting kids play a game that allows them to beat a cop.
But many parents are realists and know teenagers find ways to get what they are denied. Parents, however, have a growing arsenal of software, Web sites and tactics to cope with video games.
"The kids kind of prey on their parents' ignorance with this kind of stuff," says John Davison, president of one of those tools, Web- based What They Play: The Parent's Guide to Video Games. "You need to arm people with, 'So here is why you can't play this game,'
" or why you may.
There also is a broader problem. We are just beginning to understand the impact of modern media on children of all ages. As media change at warp speed, research struggles to keep pace.
Parents often are even further behind, and a quick Google search of violent video games only adds to their confusion because it turns up fodder for both panic and calm.
Harvard's Kutner and Olson argue that we sometimes worry about the wrong things.
Instead of breeding ultra-violent zombies, their two-year research found a correlation between playing a lot of mature violent games and bullying, fighting at school and poor grades. But they also found that children draw clear distinctions between screen violence and the real thing and that video games often are a social tool, rather than an isolating experience. So Kutner and Olson urge parents not to overreact.
In the 1950s society panicked that comic books threatened the nation's moral fiber, and at the turn of the 20th century people worried that paperback novels would corrupt young girls, according to the husband-wife team, who founded Harvard's Center for Mental Health and Media.
"We have a long history of panicking over the introduction of new media," Kutner says. "We have no evidence this is different."
Even before today's release of "Grand Theft Auto IV" some people were taking action.
The Chicago Transit Authority already indicated it would pull bus ads for the game, Fox News and GamePolitics blog reported, and the Parents Television Council was calling on retailers not to sell the new game.
For years researchers and politicians have worried about graphic video games, and there have been hundreds of studies linking violent media and aggression.
"After 40+ years of research, one might think the debate about media violence effects would be over," Iowa State University professor Craig Anderson wrote in an article on the American Psychological Association Web site.
Kutner doesn't dismiss concerns, but he suggests a deep breath and a lot more research into what's really happening, and what the outcomes are.
"The real question is which kids, if any, are at significant risk, and can we use behavior involving violent video game play as markers as what kids" should watch, he added.
Then there are parents, including Gail Hudson, who are caught in the middle. She lives in the Seattle neighborhood of Queen Anne, and she doesn't like the violence she sees when her 16-year-old son plays the wildly popular "Halo" games. She sees the shooting because his Xbox Live console is in the family room, not his bedroom, and she has been known to sit with him, "and he hates that.
"And I will usually start commenting, ... 'God this seems like a lot of shooting,'
" says Hudson, co-editor of "I Wanna Be Sedated: 30 Writers on Parenting Teenagers." "I kind of make him talk about it with me."
She also notices a social dimension, as her son chats with neighborhood friends over his headset about homework and earning driver's licenses as they hunt down opponents.
"We present our concerns about it in a way that creates dialogue," says Hudson, whose son has played an earlier version of "Grand Theft Auto," though not in her house. "He has opinions, and we listen."
She also sets limits on how long he may play.
Limits on time and content are critical, says Hilarie Cash, co- author of "Video Games & Your Kids," due out in June. "I am shocked by the lackadaisical attitude of parents" on these points.
The Redmond, Wash.-based therapist suggests parents hold off on video games until their children are 7, then allow no more than an hour a day in elementary school.
Cash also suggests a few technological tools. If your children play PC-based games, you can buy Spector Pro software to monitor your family's key strokes, Web site visits and game playing.
On Xbox 360, Mom or Dad can limit how long and which rated games their children may play. If a parent forgets the access code, the Xbox has to go back to the factory to prevent kids from resetting codes behind their parents' backs.
At its core, gaming and parenting is about trust, What They Play's Davison says, and that trust is built on talking and playing with your children.
Hudson doesn't have to like the violence she sees on the gaming screen, but she has to talk about it.
"The extreme violence in these games, it is disturbing, but we have extreme violence in movies. We are a culture that turns violence into entertainment."
- online
For more infor-mation about video games and families, here are a few places to start:
What They Play The Parents Guide to Video Games, www.what theyplay.com, including "
'Grand Theft Auto IV': 11 Things Parents Should Know"
Grand Theft Childhood A Web site dedicated to the book and research of this article's authors, www.grand theft childhood.com
Gamer Dad Gaming With Children: "A blog about video games, parenting, violence and children," www. gamingwith children.com
Entertainment Software Rating Board A trade group that assigns ratings to computer and video games, www.esrb.org.
Xbox Family Settings: A Web site with resources, tools, demos and links for families, www. xbox.com/en-US/ support/family settings
----
Sound Off...What do you think? Join the discussion
Copyright 2008 by Seattle Post-Intelligencer
