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Video Games Seriously Harmful to Children?
Coltron writes "In an article published by AskDrSears.com, medical professionals go over step by detailed step why video games are so terrible for a child's developmental Health." From the article: "A green label suggests the game is suitable for all ages. Yellow or red labels signal the video may contain violence, sexual content, or bad language. While these ratings are a start, preview the 'E' or 'ALL' ratings anyway, since the level of violence the raters consider harmless may not be acceptable in your home." This is a bad sign for the gaming industry if a medical site is beginning to take the anti-gaming studies this seriously.
to get the original article back. Ok, maybe it isn't an *exact* match, but I heard this line of tripe (including the supposed "experts") when I was a kid about playing D&D. Somehow I managed to not end up an axe murderer, as did the majority of the others. Those who did experience problems did so at a lower rate than the community at large. (26 suicides out of a population which would have expected 300 per year for its size).
That said, I still put *limits* on the games that enter this house. I have no problem with the Dynasty Warriors "hack 1000 soldiers" type games, or 3D "run and gun" games like Ratchet and Clank... because they are clearly *unrealistic*. Musou attacks and Lombaxes are pretty much fine with me.
GTA on the other hand has a story line that is much more founded in the real world. It isn't that I think that my son will *emulate* the story, per se, as much as I would prefer he not be exposed to the topics the story *covers* at his age. The same way I avoid giving him books and film covering similar topics. Emotional readiness for ideas is a real issue that gets discarded in the annoyance with the bad reputation games are being hounded with.
On the up side, this site isn't trying to censor, ban or otherwise ruin the adult's fun.
Sig under construction since 1998.
I happen to think there is some relationship between video games and the effect they have on children and their development.
I also happen to think this is a poor article, claiming "studies show", and citing not one. The best the book does is reference a title of a book by an author claiming effects, meta-citing I suppose.
If I were a concerned individual about anything and this was the reference quality handed me by one side, I'd not be swayed at all -- this borders on urban myth in its presentation ala "they say that...".
"This is a bad sign for the gaming industry if a medical site is beginning to take the anti-gaming studies this seriously."
What? Why shouldn't they take them seriously? Are the studies with merit, or without? If they are, it's the gaming industry that should be taking them seriously.
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So many objectionable premises here...where to start?
Eighty percent of the most popular video games feature aggressiveness or violence as the primary themes, and in twenty percent of these games the aggressiveness or violence is directed toward women.
This statement is ambiguously worded...does the author mean against women exclusively, or just against women in addition to men? If he means exclusively, I call shenanigans, and ask for a list of these games. If he means women in addition to men, couldn't this objection be contrued as sexist?
Lieutenant Colonel David Grossman, a psychologist at Arkansas State University and past specialist as a "killologist"...
Sorry, but I find it very hard to take anyone seriously who styles themselves a 'killologist'...unless of course I'm competing against them in Unreal Tournament...^_^
Could these video games trigger what we call "instant replay," so that the player is conditioned to pull a trigger when seeing someone go after his girlfriend?
As has been mentioned so many times before, the person who has difficulty distinguishing the game world from the real world has much deeper problems than mere video game addiction.
We are concerned that this terrifying technology can fill a child's vulnerable and receptive brain with a whole library of scary instant replays, so that by reflex he replays one of these violent scenes when faced with a real-life problem.
I'm concerned for the child whose parents allow video games to teach them values and morals, rather than taking a more active role in their progeny's upbringing...
Colonel Grossman dubs this as AVIDS - acquired violence immune deficiency syndrome.
Ah yes...the 'killollogist'....thaanks ever so much, Colonel.
Children instinctively copy adult behavior, and violent imagery is much more easily stored in the memory than less violent behavior.
This reminds me of when Bender told the TV audience, "Have you ever considered just turning off the television...sitting down with your kids...and hitting them?"
One study even reported an increase in the stress hormone adrenaline during video playing.
I'm sure it does...just as climbing a tree, jumping your dirt bike off a ramp, participating in a sporting event, or just about any other activity children might construe as 'fun'. Should we also discontinue all those activities?
These games give children an out when they don't feel in with other groups.
What the author, as well as other 'anti-game' activists, persist in denying is that the gaming community is a group that is every bit as valid as other social groups. Perhaps the author feels that gamers should stop being so antisocial, and hang out with the stoners behind the school instead....at least they'll be 'in a group' then, right?
During video-playing, children get instant gratification and can manipulate their roles to what they want. Yet, in the real world, they have to wait, and it's not always fun.
I take it the author has never so much as tried to get all the easter eggs in GTA, much less developed a character on Everquest or WoW...we'll show you the meaning of patience.
Media researchers fear that children will grow up viewing the world as violent and dangerous - a viewpoint dubbed the mean world syndrome.
Turn on CNN. Let that sink in for a couple of minutes. Then try to preach to me without choking on your own hyprocrisy.
Scary technology now allows players to "morph" headshots of other people (such as other kids or teachers whom they might hate) onto the bodies of the characters in the video game in order to shoot their heads off.
I used to have a dartboard on which I pinned pictures of people I disliked...and yet, amazingly enough, I never threw a dart at a person.
Allowing violent video games in your home could be considered as a form of child abuse. In fact, it's visual abuse.
The real 'visual abuse' was having to read this article. Thanks so much.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Funny, when I first read "just as parents learned to tame the TV," I thought it said "just as parents learned to blame the TV." I think it fits better my way.
WARNING! Will Robbinson Waring! (Flail Arms)
Just looking at the higlighted titles on each paragraph it is clear that this is just to scare and cause reaction:
WARNING:
Disturbing stats.
Disturbing research
Conditions children to be violent.
Desensitizes children to violence.
It's developmentally incorrect.
it's physiologically disturbing.
It's more dangerous than TV
it's habit forming
it interferes with self-esteem
it's poor role modeling.
It's a fearful world
It's scary.
come on how many times can you print the words disturbing without looking like a tabloid? (non) they even use the word scary. This article has 1 intent to scare people with acurate statisticly numbers like most and many as well as comparing video games to other things, I can't even believe they associated it with cancer! is this some kind of sick joke?
OK, then let's talk about a larger sample size...let's say: the entire United States of America. Violent crime is at a record low in this country. The most recent generation to reach adulthood is the generation that grew up owning Atari 2600's, Colecovision, Nintento, Commodore 64's, and PC's. These were all significant gaming platforms, which all had violent titles available for them. Also consider that these are victimization rates of people above 12 years old -- so we can also include the grand poobah of contraversial titles, Grand Theft Auto. How do you correlate the steep decline in violent crime with the dawn of video gaming? If the anti-gaming studies actually warrant concern, shouldn't we be able to find correlations between violent video games and an increase in violent crime (and not just an increase in news stories about violent crime)?
I read the article...and their conclusions were largely bullshit, and can be easily picked apart. Tripmaster Monkey has already done a good job of debunking the claims in the article, so I won't re-hash his well-worded argument. I do, however, have a problem with one of your contentions. Backing up a bogus claim with horrendous implications does not make the claim more valid. Think about these two statements (both false): "Chocolate causes acne." "Chocolate causes heart disease, as well as serious developmental disabilities in children". They are both patently false, but one has more serious implications. We know that it won't harm children too not eat chocolate, but does the latter claim make you more likely to prohibit your children from eating chocolate?
Using your logic, by making bogus claims with severe implications and using a so-called expert to back them up, you can be easily coerced into changing your behavior in just about any way. If you disagree, perhaps you should revisit your previous logic.
What people here seem to have an objection to is a sense of misdirected hysterical alarmism. Video games have become a scapegoat, especially since they represent a real disconnect between generations. Referencing recent studies on violent crime (and even property crimes) the "problem" isn't even demonstrable. It would be easier to draw parallels between arguments against video games and arguments against rock 'n roll decaying our nation's moral fiber. In actually...the kids are alright. It appears that the parents the ones who are screwed up here.
-Turkey
Now gaming was slightly more benign back when I was young, but I grew and learned so much from games. They took me to new worlds, increased my reading abilities, built freakish hand-eye coordination, and helped my decision making and process improvement abilities.
I don't think GTA, or PGR3 will be doing much of anything for kids though... and that's sad. There aren't many games left with any real substance where they have the ability to *help* kids even if the help is secondary or tertiary to the action. We need to get back to some of those games, there's nothing wrong with twitch and just fluff games... but there needs to be some balance.
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If you've raised children, you realize that a lot of stuff doesn't come built in at all. They don't know not to stick their fingers on the stove. They don't know that when they hit, kick and bite that they will get punished at the very least by losing friends.
It's not exactly true that chilren are "born violent" any more than they are born thinking flames are OK to touch. It's more that part of learning the consequences of their actions are a normal part of growing up. Learning the hitting and biting have bad conseqences is like learning that when you stand on the edge of a coffee table, it will tip over and you'll get hurt.
Another thing raising actual children will teach you is that people are born disriminators. Your hear a lot of stuff like this: You said I shouldn't hit my sister with a bat; you never mentioned hockey sticks.
Combining these two observations, I'd say that it's worth being concerned about video game violence on very young children, but not overly so. Most children get plenty of feedback about the inappropriateness of violence, and most are quite capable in my opinion of discriminating between video game violence and real life violence. There may be exceptions of course. I'd be more concerned about fanatasy elements in games that are not offset with real life learning experiences. Suburban kids growing up playing Grand Theft Auto might for example learn to think of cities as being more dangerous than they actually are. Or they might get an overly romantic view of war by playing war games.
I think it's important to know what your kids are playing or watching on TV, and to use that as an occasion to talk to them about things that presented in their entertainment. When you don't think something is appropriate, or you even just feel uncomfortable, there's nothing wrong with saying no. You can say, "I don't like that game because I don't like seeing people blown up." And if Johnny doesn't think it's fair, he can add it to the list of things you did to screw up his childhood.
In the end my biggest concern about games are opportunity costs. It's too easy to spend all your time at them, instead of the other activities they could be doing like playing outside with their friends.
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