October 9, 2007 -
A promised study on the effects of violent video games on children in the UK has begun.As reported by the BBC, TV psychologist Tanya Byron (left) is leading the research effort, assisted by Schools Secretary Ed Balls and Culture Secretary James Purnell. The review will be launched at an East London school, although its design is not clear.
The Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association which represents British game companies, was cooperative but cautious. Said ELSPA chief Paul Jackson:
We are very responsible and keen to ensure that our products are only played by those who they are designed for. [The game industry is] too often blamed for everything from obesity to youth violence. It is just not true and it's not appropriate.
We feel quite positively about this review. It's clear the review is about making sure parents are properly informed about what their youngsters are playing and what they are accessing on the internet.
Dr. Byron, who has already met with ELSPA representatives, commented on the project:
The study will be about what industry is doing already to protect children and what more could be done to ensure they have a positive experience on the internet and with games.
Well-known game developer David Braben (Elite) told the BBC that games were being singled out:
A review might be useful but it should not just look at one media, especially when media are intersecting. Historically there has always been in government a Luddite sentiment - whatever the new industry is tends to take the blame of the latest ailment of society.
We do tend to be the people who get the blame first at the moment. And that is a tragedy - because this industry is one of the most interesting media.
Braben earlier had termed Manhunt 2 as damaging to the video game industry.
Comments
岩「…I can see why Hasselbeck's worried about fake guns killing fake people. afterall, she's a fake journalist on a fake news channel」
We already tried that tack. People apparently prefer to believe that violent media come about through some sort of chaste conception in which people's love of violence doesn't exist prior to the observation of said media. And in which the media fuels this love for violence through usage of the Force, mind-controlling people into violent little automatons, so that without the media violence would no longer exist in our psyches.
@Paul Kerton
I think he's just advocating an admission that media doesn't predate and directly cause violence, not for an abstention from violence. You know, accepting that even without video games and TV and music, there would be violence just because.
@monte
Well, see, now you're promoting the use of scientific method, so there are actual controls and comparisons permitting useful conclusions to be drawn, and that just can't be allowed. This way, instead of permitting real understanding of media effects, we just get something that lets the current raters feel like they're doing their jobs and the current parents (the ignorant ones, anyway) blindly continue in their assumptions.
Well, hopefully this will be a little braoder than that, but it is hard to see what actual benefit such discussion can promote when conducted in an other-media, other-influences vacuum like this.
@Pandralisk
You could try suing them for exposing children to inappropriate materials, but I think that might backfire. Unfortunately, I am of the opinion that most parents who would volunteer a particularly young child (3-7 in general, but some younger kids can handle mature themes whereas some older can't) for such a study would less likely "know their kid is mature enough to differentiate fantasy from reality" and more likely "not care what the kid does, as long as it's out of their hair", thus ensuring the child participants have the kind of familial background that would derange them a bit anyway. Hopefully I'm mistaken.
I assume the parents are okaying it, but honestly, I question the reproductive rights and parenting skill of almost anyone who would volunteer their six-year-old to play ManHunt II so we can see if it disturbs the kid. And although it would make more sense in a scientific pursuit of gaining some knowledge about different media's and activities' effects on children, I suspect most parents wouldn't agree to have their kid also watch Saw II, listen to KKK songs, and participate in a simulation of horrific and immoral violence that the kids think is real.
Unfortunately, I don't believe the reason for this disparity is a good one--the parents are probably so far deluded into thinking video games are for kids that they don't expect the vicious game to be inappropriate despite its rating, whereas they would never consent to exposing a child of that age to participation in similar versions of activities they deem more adult.
Again, I hope I'm wrong, and particularly hope that such studies focus more on high-violence games, movies, activities such as sports and non-physical competitions, books, and family interactions--scientifically observed and compared with the effects of non-violent versions--than the true gorefests.
UKaniers: who is this person, and why was she chosen? Is she just a mouth piece?
A TV Psychologist who seems to appeal to mothers!
This is an example of Labours new Citizen Juries (or something like that) where they ask a bunch of unqualified people to come up with a piece of policy that will never see the light of day.
Typical Labour popularist bol**cks!
Greetings from Ukania!
Tanya Byron is a child psychologist who was responsible for BBC programmes House Of Tiny Tearways and Little Angels- both reality/docusoap-style programmes about parenting and baby maintenance. She's now currently co-writing/has co-written a sitcom, again with the BBC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanya_Byron
The good news is that she *is* a real doctor of Psychology, and her advice in her shows were parenting-orientated.
The bad news is that her subjects (the children) tended to have an upper age limit of five. And that her sitcom's awful.
/b
Apparently Gordon Brown set up this stdy as a response to the igh profile child on child killings that have happened this year, how about better funding so the police can catch the REAL criminals who are bringing real guns into the country and putting them in the hands of kids instead of looking for scapgoats which is all people seem to do these days.
At least this study might go to show why some parents in the UK are stupid enough to buy games rated 15 and 18 for 8 or 9 year olds. This won't stop violent games being released, but it might help educate stupid parents from buying adult games for children. I wouldn't buy Cock Sluts 8 for a 10 year old, and I certainly wouldn't buy Manhunt for a child of the same age.
Unfortunately, now you're talking about something thats deeply ingrained within humanity. We've fought for thousands of years. Its something that will never alter.
QFT!
Only with a good study that examines ALL media can we actually say if one is worst than the rest... more than likely, i think if we examine all forms of media we would get similar results, saying that all media is more or less equally effective. Which either means that all violent media is damaging or that all violent media has effects that are rather minimal compared to all other influences (more than likely the later)
http://img.metro.co.uk/i/pix/cartoons/nemi/nemi_1982_600x194.gif
Enjoy :)
Who takes bets that Gordon Brown will dismiss the study if it shows a "no effect can be detected" conclusion? I bet that poor Tanya Byron will get called names ("incompetent and biased.") if she dares to go against the money pushing her towards a specific conclusion?
Yus.
Statements like this really irk me. It is not the responsibility of a game publisher/developer to 'protect teh childrens,' any more than it is the responsibility of a producer/director of a movie, or the author of a book to do so. Parenting, go look at a dictionary if you don't know what it means.
'Philip Oliver, chief executive of Blitz games, said more education was needed for parents.
"They aren't paying attention to the certificates. That is partly because they don't understand them and have a distorted image of games - that either they are harmless or totally evil." '
This needs to be said WAY more often. People other than the industry and its consumers need to start saying it too, maybe then someone would listen rather than dismissing it as propaganda.
For all the bad points, i'd still prefer a Totalitarian Government to what we have now. As long as it's Communist.
So I say go for it, but they really should include all rated media.
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
OK Game Devs
Random Tower
When will these idiots learn that we should not study the effects of games DESIGNED FOR ADULTS on CHILDREN?
As for comparing all the types of media, that's a double edged sword. If we compare them without a good base on each one individually, then how well can we really know what we're comparing? So much of the information is so new.
For example, I was reading a study that came out this summer. The finding was that there's more of an effect of violence when the player identifies with the hero. And to clarify, since I got jumped on for this the other day, when I say effect I mean "effect size" not "cause and effect." And for future reference, pretty much the same thing when I say "affect." In essence, I'm talking about links.
But back to my point (sorry for rambeling), I don't really get the reasoning for the starting points of these studies. Everything appears to be cross-sectional. I want a longitudinal study. Better yet, I want a cohort-sequential study. And I want to know about general effects before I hear about more specialized effects.
It's very easy to get good, reliable, unbiased results. Anyone think I can talk my school's children and family center to start something other than ADHD research?
-Mike Schwinger
You know, back to previous video game controversies years ago, we didn't always have a chance to express ourselves, despite the fact we were the first people concerned by these controversies. I think this Byron review is a great opportunity to make our voice heard.