11-03-2003, 09:28 PM
Quote:Spare the violent video games, save on child psychology
By Adele Horin
September 10, 2003
If you believe children should do their homework and adults should not smoke around kids, then you should also ban violent video games from your home, a visiting psychologist says.
Craig Anderson, chairman of the department of psychology at Iowa State University, says the evidence that violent video games make children more aggressive is stronger even than evidence on the dangers of passive smoking and the benefits of doing homework.
Professor Anderson, an expert on children and video violence, is the key speaker at a seminar tomorrow organised by Young Media Australia, and later at an international conference organised by the Office of Film and Literature Classification.
"We can say with clarity that children exposed to a lot of entertainment violence grow up to be more aggressive adults," he said. "And that's even when you control for all kinds of variables such as parental aggression, temperament, education and income."
Professor Anderson said research on video game violence was less extensive than on the effects of TV and film violence. But he reviewed 46 independent tests of the effects of video games, 16 specifically on children, and found the evidence conclusive: playing violent video games caused significant increases in aggression both in the short term and the long term.
"It's imperative for parents to control their children's media diets," he says. "It can be a daunting task, especially for parents whose computer skills are considerably inferior to those of their children."
To parents who say total control is impossible, he insists: "It is difficult to control what your child eats when at a friend's house, but the solution is not to abandon your parental responsibility to provide nutritious meals at home."
Any step taken to reduce exposure to video violence was beneficial, since it was repeated exposure that produced negative effects, he said.
His own children, now aged 20 and 13, had been raised on a diet of non-violent, educational, "fun" games carefully pre-screened to ensure labels such as "action", "comic mischief" or "teen" were not covers for violence. Even videos based on cartoon characters could contain unacceptable violence.
This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/09/...2902057257.html
more shrinks are loseing there mind
first of all, i'd like to see this evidence, and second, has this psychologist ever played a video game in his life? I'm so worked up right now, im gonna go play some rico to releve the tension, thanks for putting up with my many posts :thumb: