Study Says Kids Like 'M' Rated Games 102
Ars Technica's science blog, Nobel Intent, has a post up on a study done by the Journal of Adolescent Health. The report attempted to gauge usage levels of violent videogames among young people in the US. The results are unsurprising to anyone who's ever worked in a second-hand game store: "Most boys, and many girls, played games that the ESRB had rated M, signifying that they were for mature audiences only. Of the games played by the boys, Grand Theft Auto and Halo were both in the top three, and GTA was also the 2nd most played game by girls, according to the data. Over half of all boys agreed with the statement 'I play electronic games because I like guns and weapons.' On the other hand, over 60 percent of boys and girls agreed with the statement 'I play electronic games because there's nothing else to do.'"
Oh no, game weapons!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh no, they get access to video game guns and weapons! Quick, kick the power cable of that cursed thing and throw it in the garbage bin!
Then send the kid to play outside, with
Wait a sec...
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Playing the "Grownup" Game (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do you think the main readers of "Seventeen Magazine" are considerably below 17 years of age? Why is the average patron at the clothing shop "Forever 21" is in high school? Why do you think little girls dress up baby dolls and play house?
Kids like things that are for "grownups". It's just the way things work, across the board. They think "I'm too grown up for the little kid stuff, give me the big kid stuff!" It's human nature.
Also, adolescents, in my experience, tend to put a great deal of stock in their maturity (in some cases). Most tend to think that they're mature enough to handle anything. Labelling a game "Mature" doesn't exactly deter those trying to prove their maturity.
I hope this report doesn't spur on a backlash of some sort. I'd hope most people are smart enough to realize that this is just another example the compulsion younger people have to identify with things they percieve as for "older" kids. But I'm an optimist.
Hope that made sense.
/captain obvious, signing off
A word from a parent (Score:5, Insightful)
Get involved, come up with a hobby you can do together. Go hiking. Hunt used bike parts on the net and build a couple of custom mountain bikes for you and the kid. Figure out what really interests them and dig up books which are on the subject. Organize movie nights with borderline-too-mature movies and discuss afterwards, empowering them to process stuff which is a little too heavy.
I'm not saying it's easy, but I will say it's possible.
Re:They also like (Score:5, Insightful)
This is quite easily demonstrated by movie ratings. The SAW movies? Rated R meaning you have to be 17 years old to see people thrown into a giant vat of hypodermic needles or have their heads sliced in half or watch then tear out their own eyeball with a razor or have their entire head juiced by a top-only iron maiden. You can see this if you are under 17 as long as you bring an adult with you who can explain why someone is hacksawing their own foot off.
On the other hand, show a vagina? Instant NC-17 (good luck being shown in theaters), meaning your film can only be seen by adults, even if you have a guardian. After all, one can explain to a teenager why someone is ripping another person's heart right out of their ribcage, but you obviously can't possibly explain why a female would have an unclothed vagina in the shower.
So why is violence acceptable everywhere but in video games?
And really, why are people shocked?! Little boys play cops and robbers and love guns and weapons and military stuff as soon as they're able to walk.
Re:A word from a parent (Score:5, Insightful)
Most kids don't have yards or at least not yards big enough to enjoy.
It's all find to tell kids to "go out and play!", but what are they supposed to do in that postage-stamp sized plot of grass you have for them in your suburban neighborhood?
People are squirting out kids when they can't afford a home with plenty of property for a child to really enjoy their childhood. They are scared by the news that their kid is going to be molested or killed if they go anywhere on their own, like taking the bus to the library. Parents are too busy pulling in double incomes so they can afford that speed boat they take out every year for two days.
Videogames and television are a way they can keep the kids out of their hair and off the streets. At least, until we can invent some sort of space-tech that lets your children incubate in a giant pull-out drawer until they're 18 and you can just unplug them from the nutrition tube and wash your hands of them.
Re:A word from a parent (Score:5, Insightful)
I still think that the vast majority of the cases are more about lazy parents than something else.
Burning Books (Score:5, Insightful)
The simple reason why video games are a target is that most soccer mom's don't play video games any more complex the Snood or Bejeweled. It is an easy point to score to say that you want to save the children by setting up a government censorship board that will police your children when you are not doing it. Granted, no one says it in terms of 'government censorship board' because somewhere in the minds of voters they might actually start to see this as a violation of free speech. This is also why we don't see anyone running trying to put in laws setting up a body to censor books. If someone advocated rating and censoring books, even the dullest of Americans might realize that they are getting their free speech stomped on and react negatively.
The simple fact is that a disturbing amount of Americans don't recognize new media as speech. They recognize that a book is a form of speech that is protected, but fail to appreciate that a video game (or going back a few years, comic books and D&D) are ALSO forms of speech that need to be protected from government regulation and censorship.
People tend to be weak on principles and only perk up when they feel personally threatened. People will vote down the legalization of marijuana because they don't smoke, but would riot and start lynching politicians if alcohol was banned. People will vote for the right to have an abortion when they are young and having promiscuous sex and fear an unplanned pregnancy, but turn around when they are 50, in menopause, and couldn't have a child if they wanted to and vote against it. People will vote to increase taxes for schools when they have kids, and vote against them once the little buggers are out the door.
The hubbub about violent video games is just another example of this self interest untempered by principle. Advocating rating and censoring books for 'violent content' or sex and you would be crucified and thrown out of office. Do the same thing for video games and your average 40 something mom or dad who struggles to get the photos off of their digital camera will happily pat the politician on the back for doing something 'for the children'.
So, why are video games so easy to kick down? Because not enough of the voting population plays video games and people are too dense or indifferent to realize that free speech applies to all speech, not just the speech that they personally consume.
Thankfully, we have a constitution that recognizes that people are stupid and democracies do a mediocre job at best protecting minorities. We (Americans at least) live in a country that while democratic in nature is blessedly NOT a democracy where majority rules. Stuff like anti-video game crusading that the courts have valiantly stopped cold using the Bill of Rights is a civics lesson on why anything approaching pure democracy is an invitation to tyranny by the political majority.
Re:Oh no, game weapons!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Playing the "Grownup" Game (Score:3, Insightful)
* Boys especially, owing to the suspected mildly polygynous nature of prehistoric humanity.
Re:A word from a non-parent (Score:2, Insightful)
Stop posting already.
Re:A word from a parent (Score:2, Insightful)
If you posed the same question as "Do you play football because there's nothing else to do?" you might get a similar percentage! Kids will very quickly see the current activity as the only one being worth spending time on. If you give them a series of questions about video games, they will imagine themselves playing their favourite video game, and find it hard to imagine "something else to do"
insufficent (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh no, game weapons!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Adolescents feel like they need to prove their maturity all the time. Mature games/movies/books/etc are just a few ways they can wave the 'adult' flag around.
Re:Burning Books (Score:3, Insightful)
You wanna bet? Lots of Americans don't read. All the media they ingest (movies, videogames, TV) is already censored. If someone came along advocating ratings for books, arguing that TV, movies, and videogames were already rated, who would argue against it? People who read books. Considering the anti-intellectualism of American culture, it would be framed as "family values" vs. "cultural elitists" (aka "those uppity people who read books"), and you know who's going to win that fight.
The main hazard of using reductio ad absurdum is that some people will follow you straight to the very same absurd consequence that was supposed to discredit their premises to begin with. This is why yesterday's dystopian fiction is today's standard operating procedure.
Democracy is not Liberal (Score:4, Insightful)
A Republic with a strong constitution is an inherently undemocratic form of government. It is more 'democratic' than a dictatorship to be sure, but the Bill of Rights for instance is an inherently undemocratic document. The Bill of Rights sets out rights and rules that everyone will receive, regardless if the majority finds it prudent or not. It is an inherently undemocratic document in that it takes FAR more then a simple majority to overturn something like freedom of speech. 51%, 60%, or 65% of the population could vote to revoke the 1st amendment and they would fail. Hell, even with a super majority of 100% of the population begging the government to repeat the first amendment, it would still take a bare minimum years to move the process through. Undemocratic? Sure? One of the pillars keeping society liberal and free (even if not democratic)? Hell yes.
Democracy does not promise a liberal (and I use that in the traditional sense of the word) or free society. Democracy is just a nice clean way to transfer power and run day to day affairs. Non-democratic processes are what protect a liberal and free society from people like Hillary Clinton or the Right-Wing-Nutjob-of-the-Week from setting up a government censorship board.