Whitney
Edward 1
Video Games Don't Create Killers
October 22nd 2008 17:52
Apparently, to as much to many parent's chagrin, there really isn't a reason to take away or prevent your child from playing violent games. He's just not going to turn out to be a serial killer, unless of course that's what is pre-destined to his fate. The violent games that are available are still aged appropriately, so you should still watch out for your child's particular age bracket, but if the game says 13 and up, and you child is 13, let him play the blood thirsty video game, it's not going to change how he acts or behaves.
Plus, anyway it's your job as the parent, to make sure that your child knows right from wrong, which means you can't rely on teachers to do the job. I mean the video games alone aren't going to turn your child into blood thirsty killers.
Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson with Harvard Medical School conducted a study and then published it as "Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do," which came out last month in hopes to reshape parent's thoughts about video games and their children.
The husband and wife pair studied over 1,200 middle school aged children for two years. Instead of a laboratory experiment that used loud buzzers as a measure of aggression, they, for the most part just asked the kids their thoughts on video games and found that playing video games was near universal among most children.
The pair decided that they needed further study because the data only showed a correlation and not a causation, and it was unclear whether or not the games actually triggered the aggression or if aggressive children are just drawn to more violent games.
They attempted to put video games into a larger context of popular culture, where the a parent's anxiety over video games is pretty much mirrored concerns with the movies, comics, and television became popular.
The book that they published pretty much approaches children, aggression, and video games at a common sense level, and basically stated that violent behavior, bad grades, etc. is a bad sign in general but that doesn't necessarily mean that you can attribute it all to the games that the child is playing.
Plus, anyway it's your job as the parent, to make sure that your child knows right from wrong, which means you can't rely on teachers to do the job. I mean the video games alone aren't going to turn your child into blood thirsty killers.
Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson with Harvard Medical School conducted a study and then published it as "Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do," which came out last month in hopes to reshape parent's thoughts about video games and their children.
"What I hope people realize is that there is no data to support the simple-minded concerns that video games cause violence," Kutner said.
The husband and wife pair studied over 1,200 middle school aged children for two years. Instead of a laboratory experiment that used loud buzzers as a measure of aggression, they, for the most part just asked the kids their thoughts on video games and found that playing video games was near universal among most children.
But the data did show a link between playing mature-rated games and aggressive behaviour. The researchers found that 51 per cent of boys who played M-rated games – the US industry's equivalent of an R-rated movie, meaning suitable for ages 17 and up – had been in a fight in the past year, compared to 28 per cent of non-M-rated gamers.
The pattern was even stronger among girls, with 40 per cent of those who played M-rated games having been in a fight in the past year, compared to just 14 per cent for non-M players.
One of the most surprising things was how popular mature games were among girls. In fact, the Grand Theft Auto crime action series was the second-most played game behind The Sims, a sort of virtual dollhouse.
The pattern was even stronger among girls, with 40 per cent of those who played M-rated games having been in a fight in the past year, compared to just 14 per cent for non-M players.
One of the most surprising things was how popular mature games were among girls. In fact, the Grand Theft Auto crime action series was the second-most played game behind The Sims, a sort of virtual dollhouse.
The pair decided that they needed further study because the data only showed a correlation and not a causation, and it was unclear whether or not the games actually triggered the aggression or if aggressive children are just drawn to more violent games.
They attempted to put video games into a larger context of popular culture, where the a parent's anxiety over video games is pretty much mirrored concerns with the movies, comics, and television became popular.
"One thing I like about their approach is that they've tried to historicize the whole concept of a media controversy and that we've seen this before," said Ian Bogost, a professor at Georgia Tech known for his studies on video games.
The book that they published pretty much approaches children, aggression, and video games at a common sense level, and basically stated that violent behavior, bad grades, etc. is a bad sign in general but that doesn't necessarily mean that you can attribute it all to the games that the child is playing.
"If you have, for example, a girl who plays 15 hours a week of exclusively violent video games, I'd be very concerned because it's very unusual," Kutner said.
"But for boys (the danger sign) is not playing video games at all, because it looks like for this generation, video games are a measure of social competence for boys."
"But for boys (the danger sign) is not playing video games at all, because it looks like for this generation, video games are a measure of social competence for boys."
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Comment by Wilson Pon
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I'm have playing games for over 20 years and it didn't turn me into a villian or series killer!
It's all about the insanity of human beings here...
Comment by Whitney
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