Tuesday, November 20, 2007
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Playing multiple violent videogames increased their risk of being highly aggressive.
Sight See: WhatTheyPlay.com

"Students who played multiple violent video games actually learned through those games to produce greater hostile actions and aggressive behaviors over a span of six months," reports Science Daily <http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071113160359.htm>, citing a study of almost 2,500 young people - "Violent Video Games as Exemplary Teachers: A Conceptual Analysis" - to be published soon in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence. It worked with 430 kids in grades 3-5, 607 in grades 8 and 9, and 1,441 students with an average age of 19, assessing "aggressive thoughts and self-reported fights, and their media habits - including violent video game exposure. Teachers and peers were also asked to rate the participants' aggressive behavior." With the grade-school students, "playing multiple violent videogames increased their risk of being highly aggressive.


Less than half - 43% - of parents of kids who play video games play them with their children, the Associated Press reports <http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5if3tJjIxhz596nF_zjpcPWstHt5gD8SSC7HO2>, citing a just-released AOL/AP survey. "Overall, the survey highlighted how pervasive - yet age-related - interest in electronic gaming is today." The survey found that 81% of children 4-17 play computer or video games at least occasionally, compared with 38% of adults. As for those parents who aren't familiar with the games their children play, there's an alternative. They can read reviews of the games at a new site called WhatTheyPlay.com, which is a great idea. Surprisingly, a Los Angeles Times article about the site <http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-play12nov12,1,3134212.story> makes no mention of another helpful service for parents of videogamers: ESRB.org, where they can look up any game's rating (the site of the Entertainment Software Rating Board). Type a game's title into its search engine box - e.g., Halo 3 - and its rating will turn up (for this one, it's "M" for "Mature," for violence and blood and gore). The ratings guide <http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp> adds a little detail, e.g., the appropriate-age recommendation for M games: 17+.

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