Anthony Smithee

I don't know about the kids you know, but my grandchildren certainly show the intelligence and maturity necessary to distinguish between them.
Have you ever actually seen old photos of the devastation in Vietnam? Or the state of the Jewish survivors of Auschwitz?
For that matter, have you seen the animals feeding on the corpses of other animals?
None of those things are particularly pleasant to see and, in the cases of Vietnam and the Holocaust, are quite sickening at times.
It depends on how you define 'show it at any time of the day'.
Many do not find the content objectionable and will thus not be bothered by watching it whenever.
Perhaps because they don't view it as a slide, merely the progression of society?
Society doesn't need you to protect it. It's mature enough to protect itself from anything it feels is a threat.

Smidgey

I do.

No, but I also wouldn't be happy if she watched one of my Kill Bill DVDs whilst I was out of the house. Neither should be illegal and I would punish my child if she did either. I would hope I would raise her well enough in the first place - but all children are curious.

Cinemas would also enact their own ratings outside of the law. They would lose a lot of custom having children screaming away during an adult horror film. There is no need to use violence to enforce these ratings when cinemas, parents, customers, pressure groups and the market can do these things well enough.

They could watch 'bad' DVDs too under your system. Maybe we should ban DVDs?

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C_steam

no. you won't. because your neaual pathways are already burnt and you have 'learnt'.

these are the facts:- firstly, only the conscious mind can diferentiate between the real and the unreal. the unconscious mind, where most of the processing foes on, cannot. secondly, the things we do in games mirror the majority of our effective teaching strategies. Thirdly, when taight, we burn new neural pathways to build new responses to stimuli - this is much harder where ones already fully exist, by the way.

net result is that you 'learn' that the things you are exposed to are the reality of your world. this is true for all of us, but especially true where the 'learner' is young and the immersion is near total.

so a younger person who is greatly exposed to sexual and violent scenes will have a different tolerance of these things to those who haven't. this lowering of the tolerance, or, if you like, greater acceptance of the percieved 'normality' of these things, will then be more likely to go over what we would percieve as our usual moral boundaries.

hope that makes sense, it's a complex subject. Anyway, you can see it everywhere, one good example is the increasing sexuality of our youth, since the media continually portrays that as 'OK'.

sorry - edit: of course, no-one will argue against the fact that there are positive effects of video games - improved hand eye co-ordination for one, and as a tool for learning pc based delivery can be very effective. but the reasoning for why these benefits occur is the same as the reasoning for a decreasing violence threshold.

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C_steam

Video Game Violence and Public Policy David Walsh, Ph.D.

Video games will turn 30 years old in 2002. The industry that started with Pong has become a multi-billion dollar worldwide industry. The growth of the industry is both matched and driven by the technological advances. In a little more than two years, video game consoles have gone from processing 350,000 polygons per second (pg/s) —a measure of graphic and action quality-- to processing 125 million pg/s.

The increasingly realistic and exciting nature of electronic games has helped to make them enormously popular with children and youth. 79% of American children now play computer or video games on a regular basis. Children between the ages of seven and 17 play for an average of eight hours a week. Most of the games on the market are appropriate for these young players, and the best of them can bring a lot of benefits. Besides being fun, some of the games provide practice in problem solving and logic as well as strategizing.

The growth of electronic games has not been without controversy, however. The subset of games that feature violence, gore, and antisocial behavior has raised concern among parents, educators, child advocates, medical professionals, and policy makers. The implication of games in high profile school shootings has led to congressional hearings, government investigations, and legislative proposals. The intense concern about video and computer games is based on the belief that the ultra violent games are inappropriate for all children and harmful to some.

This paper will address three issues related to the questions surrounding violent electronic games and children.

Is the concern about violent video games justified?

Concern about violent video and computer games is based on the assumption that they contribute to aggression and violence among young players. That conclusion was originally based on the extensive body of research about the effects of television violence on children's behavior. Prominent organizations like the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Medical Association have all concluded that the scientific evidence shows a cause-effect relationship between television violence and aggression among the children and youth who watch it. Based on this research, many social scientists have hypothesized that we should expect video games to have an even greater impact for the following four reasons.

1. Children are more likely to imitate the actions of a character with whom they identify. In violent video games the player is often required to take the point of view of the shooter or perpetrator.

2. Video games by their very nature require active participation rather than passive observation.

3. Repetition increases learning. Video games involve a great deal of repetition. If the games are violent, then the effect is a behavioral rehearsal for violent activity.

4. Rewards increase learning, and video games are based on a reward system.

While the research base conducted on video games is small compared to that conducted on television, early results are showing that the concern is indeed warranted. Anderson & Bushman have conducted a meta-analysis of 35 different studies of violent video games (2001). A meta-analysis is a type of study in which researchers analyze the results of other studies to see if there are similar patterns of results; Anderson and Bushman showed that there is a consistent pattern of results in five areas.



Exposure to violent games increases physiological arousal.
Studies measuring the physiological responses to playing violent video games (compared with physiological responses to non-violent games) have shown that violent games increase physiological arousal. Heart rate, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure all increase when playing violent games. Ballard & Weist (1996) showed that playing a violent game (Mortal Kombat, with the depictions of blood "turned on") resulted in higher systolic blood pressure increases than playing a non-violent game or Mortal Kombat with the blood "turned off." Studies by Lynch (1994, 1999) have shown that the effect may be even greater for children who are naturally more aggressive. Students who scored in the top 20% on a trait hostility scale showed much greater increases in physiological response than students scoring in the bottom 20% of the hostility scale. Children who were more hostile also showed much greater response in adrenaline, nor-adrenaline, and testosterone than children who were less hostile after playing a violent video game. These physiological effects are important because these are the same types of physiological reactions bodies have when engaged in a fight. The interaction with trait hostility is important because it suggests that the effects of playing violent games may be even greater for children who are already at risk for aggressive behavior.



Exposure to violent games increases aggressive thoughts.
Studies measuring cognitive responses to playing violent video games (compared with cognitive responses to non-violent games) have shown that violent games increase aggressive thoughts. These findings have been found for males and females, children and adults, and in experimental and correlational studies. Kirsh (1998) found that exposure to a violent video game increases hostile attribution bias (defined below) in the short term, relative to exposure to a non-violent video game. The term hostile attribution bias has been used to describe the manner in which aggressive children perceive the actions of peers. Children who tend to interpret ambiguous social cues as being of hostile intent (i.e., have a hostile attribution bias) are more aggressive (e.g., Crick & Dodge, 1994). Furthermore, there is a robust relationship between hostile attribution bias and children’s social maladjustment, such as depression, negative self-perceptions, and peer rejection (Crick, 1995). Gentile et al. (under review) also found that children who play more violent games are more likely to have a hostile attribution bias.



Exposure to violent games increases aggressive emotions.
Studies measuring emotional responses to playing violent video games (compared with emotional responses to non-violent games) have shown that violent games increase aggressive emotions. Adolescents themselves often seem to recognize this. When asked to name the "bad things" about computer games, many students reported that they make people more moody and aggressive (Griffiths & Hunt, 1998). In this study, students who were more "addicted" to video games were significantly more likely to be in a bad mood before, during, and after play than were non-addicted students.



Exposure to violent games increases aggressive actions.
Studies measuring aggressive behaviors after playing violent video games (compared with behaviors displayed after playing non-violent games) have shown that violent games increase aggression. In one study of college students, students played either a violent or non-violent game. After playing this game, they were given a competitive reaction time task in which they played against another student. If they beat the other student, they got to deliver a loud "noise blast," and were able to control how loud and how long the noise blast would be. Students who had previously played the violent video game delivered longer noise blasts to their opponents (Anderson & Dill, 2000).

In a study of 8th and 9th graders, students who played more violent video games were also more likely to see the world as a hostile place, to get into frequent arguments with teachers, and to be involved in physical fights (Gentile et al., under review). It has often been suggested that violent video games are not the culprit for these types of behaviors; instead, the cause is underlying hostility. The argument goes, "Hostile kids get into more arguments and more fights. They also like to play more violent games." While this is true, it is not the whole story. This study measured children’s trait hostility, and found that exposure to video game violence is a significant predictor of physical fights, even when students’ sex, hostility level, and amount of video game playing are controlled statistically. If hostility were the whole story, then in general, only hostile children would tend to get into fights, and children with the lowest hostility scores would not get into physical fights regardless of their video game habits. Figure 1 shows the percentages of students who report being involved in physical fights within the previous year. Children with the lowest hostility scores are almost 10 times more likely to have been involved in physical fights if they play a lot of violent video games than if they do not play violent games (38% compared to 4%). In fact, the least hostile children who play a lot of violent video games are more likely to be involved in fights than are the most hostile children who do not play violent video games.

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kernow

I'm sure all this is true! Personally when I read or see on TV violence towards innocent people (I mean fact not fiction) , I immediately feel violence towards the perpetrators of violence! I suppose that is why I'm a "Flog 'em and hang 'em" sort!

PCMadness

Finally some sense, nice one C_Steam.

I will post a more fitting response to the other posts when I have more time.

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Tom Wilde

Hello PC Madness. How long have you been in the force?

mkpdavies

Maybe the default value of channels available should be "locked" and the bill payer then unlocks them is some way.

Mind, none of this stopped me as a kid. We watched all the films we wanted too, by various dubious means.

With the internet now allowing you to view almost anything, what is on the controlled box seems almost irellevant to me though now.

I'd have given my very muscular right arm for the internet when I was a teenager.

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Anthony Smithee

A good point. Anything you could want is available on the Internet; limiting it on TV would do little to prevent any problem caused by it, of which I am unconvinced in the first place.

PCMadness

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