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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...".
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.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
This article is idiotic and impossible to read if you have the critical thinking skills more sophisticated than that of a turnip.
However (and this is the silliest thing I'll say all week):
Something about CRTs make me uncomfortable. I'll never own a television, and when I have kids I'm not even sure I want them seeing a computer monitor 'till they're three or four. I'm nervous about watching moving pictures my own self. I superstitiously believe somehow that they'll have weird effects on visual cognition in infants.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
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.
The suggested parental guidance section was pleasent suprise. After all the really silly things like, "It's scary", they have some really down to earth suggestions for parents. They do not say that all games are bad. They know video games are here to stay. They encourage active parental monitoring. After all, haven't the
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable" - JFK
"It interferes with self-esteem. The most disturbing fact is that children who have the least amount of self-esteem and mastery over their life are the ones most attracted to video games. According to Dr. Jane Healy in her book Endangered Minds, boys who pursue violent video games are more likely to have low self-confidence in school and be less successful in personal relationships. Studies have also shown that for girls increased time playing video or computer games is associated with lowered self-esteem. These games give children an out when they don't feel in with other groups."
What part of that is wrong or harmful? In all honesty, when I was growing up if I didn't have games as an "out" for not fitting in with nearly every other person I knew, I wouldn't be here today.
I'm all for studies and whatnot, but when they start taking the positive aspects of gaming and turning it negative, this is even more obviously a sham to get attention for themselves.
Games just seem to be the popular, social punching bag of the day lately.
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?
Disturbing stats? The stats themselves are only disturbing if you establish a correlation between cause and effect.
....
willingness to kill another person is not a natural behavior
We've been killing each other since the beginning of time even before video games were ever invented. Whether or not it's natural is debatable and doesn't tell us much anyway
A 1998 study showed that while playing video games children experience a high release of the brain neurotransmitter dopamine, w hich could be called the hype hormone.
High levels of dopamine are common in people with obsessive comulsive disorder so it should be easy to show a correlation between OCD and violence which the author has not done so we might assume there is none.
If there's a correlation between violent crimes and video games then how come while video games are on the increase violent crime is on the decrease?
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.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
I can remember the instant I became desensitized to violence. It was the scene in Robocop where the lead character is getting shot all to shit in the warehouse pre-transformation.
I was pretty advanced for a kid my age, so my parents had allowed me monitored access to media considered generally inappropriate for my age group. I usually ingested it just fine. I was really into sci-fi and was looking forward to seeing a movie about an ass kicking robot.
I nearly cried during that scene because I couldn't determine if that could happen without you passing out or dying. All the other violent scenes I had witnessed resulted in very quick deaths. The idea that the pain and damage could add up like that was a little too much.
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.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
However, I already pointed to this in a previous comment on yet another article on the coming ban on 'M' rated games. (I really don't know how long it will take, but I believe it is coming so be prepared for it.)
So, in the interest in presenting new research on the subject of this impressive charlatan, I present this, The Dave Grossman Debate. The author tends to use emotional rhetoric too much but is understandably upset by the implications of Grossman's writing, which is that police officers and military personel are being turned into homicidal zombie killbots by the new 'murder simulators' that also happen to be the basis of the evil videogames that are poisoning our children:
Even though the rhetoric is a little emotional for my taste (I prefer the dryer sarcastic wit of the other article) this article is dense with statistical and historical information debunking Grossman.Of course, none of this is going to matter to the believers.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
So the military does in fact believe that visual exposure to violence does desensitize to some degree. If so, it is not a stretch to believe that violence depicted in video games can provide desensitization as well. Hell, the interactive and participatory nature of video games may make it more effective than passively watching a film.
I have absolutely no problem with shooting someone's head off in GTA, and I got a kick from watching a disembodied eyeball sprite roll down my screen after I blew someone into a thousand gibs in Rise Of The Triad (it was just so silly!). And yet, I can't sit through a documentary on reconstructive surgery without the urge to vomit, simply from the sight of bloody bone and tissue. I am uncomfortable viewing photographs and movies of people being shot, maimed, or otherwise injured, yet it doesn't bother me when someone dies violently in a Hollywood movie. I don't even get into fist-fights in real life, let alone shoot innocent people, but I do it all the time in video games.
The difference? Video games and Hollywood movies are fake, and I know that they are fake. Nobody is actually being hurt. So, I guess you can say I'm desensitized to fake violence. Doctors and military personel, though... they are desensitized to REAL violence/disfigurement/injury. If, as the pundits argue, being desensitized to violence makes you a danger to society, why do we let doctors handle scapels, and actually give automatic rifles to the military?
Clearly, there's more to the story than just being "desensitized." For one thing, the person has to have a desire to cause violence in the first place. They also have to have enough of a lack of empathy (or the ability to divorce empathy from your actions) to be "okay" about hurting someone. When a doctor cuts into you to, say, perform heart surgery, he's not trying to hurt you, he's doing the opposite. And, let me tell you, empathy goes right out the door when the person you're supposed to feel empathy towards is trying to kill you.
Frankly, if the pundits want an arguement against "violent" video games, they should be arguing about the games that don't have blood and gore. For example, I can stab someone through the stomach with a sword in Soul Calibur, but they don't bleed; in fact, an injury which would be fatal in real life won't even make the victim bend over in pain, they just get back up and keep fighting. (Since TFA mentioned 20% of the violent games having "aggressiveness or violence... directed toward women," I'll offer Soul Calibur as an example on their behalf. But in all fairness, those women are trying to kick my ass, too, so it's mutual.)
It is certainly possible that being interactive could make video games more effective than movies at desensitizing people to fake violence. If somebody invented a video game where you can interactively kill real people, I would be entirely against it. (Wanna play a round of Ender's Game, anyone?)
But saying that video games desensitize kids to actual violence doesn't match the evidence that I've observed in my own life. And, frankly, my own observations are far more "scientific" and "credible" than anything they mention in the article. (Playing an intense video game raises adrenaline levels, increases blood pressure, and causes rapid breathing? How horrible, the children are in danger! But then... so does a really intense championship game of chess, or competing in a spelling bee, or reading a scary story... not to mention getting off your duff and doing some excercise. Hell, my pulse has gone up a little bit just from being so focused on tearing down this stupid article.)
P.S. AVIDS (Acquired Violence Immune Deficiency Syndrom) is even stupider than "killologist;" at least killologist means what it's supposed to mean (someone who studies, uh, killing people?). If the kids are acquiring a deficiency in their "immunity" to viole