Won’t Somebody Think of the Children?

Provocations

From playing first shepherd to playing first person shooter games…should we be allowing our under 10’s to play violent games? asks Elizabee …

I suppose I should start this article by explaining that I am not writing from a purely theoretical perspective. I am in fact looking to settle a long running argument between me and the other half. See, we have a 4 year old boy. He’s pretty nice, you know, all small boyish, quite cuddly and still makes endearing grammatical mistakes like saying ‘you hiddid’ instead of ‘you hid’. He was a little shepherd in the school nativity, in a dressing gown and teatowel. I like him. Of course, I’m supposed to, and there may be a certain amount of bias here but I think he’s rather smart and wonderful. And little, and (mainly) innocent (there have been some incidents with the theft of chocolate Santa’s from the Christmas tree but we’ll overlook that for now!).

But this article isn’t just about the potential loss of innocence that watching scenes of violence may cause. That is, I suppose, a part of it, but then we could get into the argument about the creation of childhood in the 20th century (wherein it is pointed out that childhood was not revered as a sacred entitlement for most of the preceding millennium). However, I’m happy to assume that most people now accept the status quo in respect of our kids being entitled to their childhood.

Anyway, so back to the main argument. My mister insists that it’s ok for our little one to play first person shooter games on the Xbox such as Halo, Call of duty, and some other one which involves zombies and soldiers, ‘zombie death apocalypse’ or some such. Ok, ok, that’s probably not its actual name but that seems to encapsulate the main theme of the game. I have put my foot down and said ‘No’. It has caused the following debate:

Me: I don’t want him playing those games, they have an age rating for a reason.

Him: well, it never did me any harm.

Me: you can’t seriously be comparing the computer games available in the 80’s to the realistic ones here?

Him: It doesn’t matter how realistic it is, he knows it’s just a game. Plus, he’s not shooting people, he’s shooting aliens or zombies.

Me: I don’t want him being put in the perspective of someone who’s sole mission is to shoot everything that moves.

And it continues.

The thing is, there have been studies about the effect of computer games on children’s behaviour. Just google it as a search term and there’s a plethora of work on the subject. This scholarly article for example, concludes that

experiment showed that individuals low in VVE (Videogame Violence Exposure) behave more aggressively after playing a violent video game than after a nonviolent game but that those high in VVE display relatively high levels of aggression regardless of game content.1

And this really is my problem. It’s not that I believe that my 4 year old is going to go on a killing spree, with the precision and mindset of a Spartan schoolchild. It’s that I believe that the effects are more subtle and far reaching than just cause = effect. I believe that there’s a distinct possibility that he will lose the ability to empathize (and let’s face it, this is a skill I really want my son to have in spades for the future, when he grows into a man). There have been numerous studies showing that people who have been playing violent video games show less empathy towards someone who needs help. I want a future with more empathy towards our fellow human beings, not less.

Secondly, there have also been studies that show a link between aggressive play and violent video games. I don’t want that, I am not one of those people that believes that ‘boys will be boys’. I believe that we are supposed to be evolving, not just physically, but intellectually and in attitude. So many things that previous generations took for granted as normal have changed, girls are now allowed opinions and careers. Racism is not Ok.

So perhaps it’s time we stopped taking it for granted that boys’ play should be aggressive. I understand that only a portion of the parenting population will agree with this (liberal/middle class/insert stereotype here), and therefore we will be leaving our boys and future men exposed to rougher, tougher others from different backgrounds. I’m not against teaching kids self-defense. Karate, Judo and Tae Kwon Do are all ways to learn self-discipline, self-defense and a means of keeping healthy too. But for me, the difference comes with the fact that all these traditions come with a rule – only cause harm if it is completely necessary for your own survival.

This is where first person player violent games flip that rule right on its head. The rule seems to me to be ‘harm the bejaysus out of anything that moves, and screw anyone else who’s in your way’.

And my third objection is I suppose more philosophical, more of a ‘what if’. It kind of goes along with not letting kids play with guns. It goes a bit like this:

What if…hurting others was not just socially unacceptable but actually weird?

What if…empathy towards others was so well developed that the future looked completely different in terms of human to human interaction?

What if…our children were not desensitized to violence and it was so shocking it caused outrage?

And I know it’s a Utopian ideal, I know people argue it’s human nature to be violent, but then would they have been the same people 200 years ago arguing that women are less intelligent naturally and that any non-Caucasian race were another species?

My point is, that humanity is capable of spiritual evolution and changing thought from one ideal to another.
So, my final question to you, dear reader is this (and I do want your opinion): Is it ok to let a primary school child play violent videogames? Would you let them? If so, why and if not, why? I really want to know if I’m in the majority or the oddball in the corner here!

1Citation:Barthlow, B; Sestir, M; Davis, M (2005)

17 comments

  1. I have a pretty good understanding of this. Having raised my lad who is now almost 11 me and the wife have had plenty of talks on this subject.

    We said no to an xbox, yes to a wii and yes to the odd online game (lego, toontown etc) on the mac. As a result he now enjoys games such as minecraft and other building / community games and has a creative thought process while his xbox friends talk about death counts, killing, shooting and joining the army.

    1. Thank you, that’s a useful perspective. Including the comparison between your son’s friends doing death counts & your son’s more constructive preference in interesting. As it goes, we do have a Wii, which I’m happy to let him play with so at least I’m not a complete Luddite! And I dont mind him watching Thundercats and 80’s Spiderman. Is that hypocritical? Hmm…

  2. On one hand, a lot of the research showing negative effects is poor quality and questionable. There is more convincing evidence of positive effects. However – I agree with you. The age ratings are DEFINITELY there for a reason. You are correct that the games your husband played as a kid are of a completely different breed.

    That is kind of the point – kids who grew up with those games are often still playing games. They aren’t playing kids games – they are now adult games written for that same generation. Age ratings indicating adult content don’t just refer to a bit of alien guts and zombie horror – it’s very mature themes, complex emotional and moral situations, adult relationships, sex, politics.

    There are plenty of games for kids. Kids of all ages. They don’t need to play games designed for adults.

    1. Hi Erica, please could you direct me to the evidence that playing FPS’s is positive? I think it’s only fair that I look at both sides of the evidence…

  3. Our experiences broadly mirror Darren’s above, and our 10 year olds younger brother has followed suit and is more interested in Minecraft than anything shooty.

    If you’re interested in how violence might be imitated by young children, look up the Bobo doll experiment, then decide if it applies to video games and draw your own conclusions.

    1. The Bandura experiment of the 60’s is one of the many reasons I feel strongly about this theme. I did Sociology/Psychology as my degree, and focussed heavily on child development. I really don’t think developing brains should be exposed to images of realistic violence. Here’s the link to the video of the experiment http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=hHHdovKHDNU&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DhHHdovKHDNU&gl=GB
      Although knowing my partner as I do, he will probably argue that experiment is so old it’s not relevant because kids are different now…

  4. He is lucky. He will turn out fine because you care. You’re not just leaving him to play with a video game because it’ll keep him busy while you do something else.

    It’s a completely different world now from when we grew up, so I do worry when I see my cousin’s completely engrossed in their headsets and a violent video game. When I was five my parents used to let me and my siblings watch horror movies like Evil Dead! We were too young to understand it was scary, but as I got older I somehow became scared. I wonder if, on some level it’s the same process, because children are more intelligent than we realise, but as an aunty or mother you can’t help worrying.

    1. Thank you Selina. Parenting is a minefield…sometimes something you think is really important can have no effect and sometimes something you don’t think is an issue can mess them up for life! All I can do is my best I suppose. Which is why a good argument might be that no harm can come from him not playing violent games but there is a possibility of harm if he does play them…

  5. When I saw the title to this article, I thought it was going to be another of those, “Violent video games are evil and should be banned! Won’t somebody think of the children???” type pieces, but thankfully it isn’t. The short answer to your question would be, ‘absolutely not, and your husband is wrong’.

    Having played videogames myself for… (counts in head) … 26 years so far, I feel I’m pretty switched on about their benefits, especially to young children, seeing as I have two of those as well.

    On a purely ergonomic level, I’d be amazed if a four-year-old had hands big enough to hold an Xbox controller, and the fine motor skills to perform the precision movements and button/stick combinations to actually play the game.

    However, that’s by the by. There are any number of types of videogame out there that are fantastic for young children to play and enjoy, without the need to play FPSs. Even if they are zombies or robots or aliens, there’s still a lot of visible and audible chaos and urgency on-screen that I wouldn’t want my kids to be engaging with for any length of time at all.

    I’ve been playing an old Gamecube game, The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker with my son since he was three (he’s now just turned five), and it’s a fantastic, sprawling adventure game, full of exploration, treasure chests, sword fighting (the baddies disappear in a puff of smoke), pirate ships, etc. He’s been beguiled with it from the off, and it’s a great example of a video game you can play with your child, that isn’t necessarily some neutered ‘educational’ game (although many of the games on, for example, the Cbeebies site, are bloody brilliant).

    FPSs are by and large just fancy-looking shooting galleries, where everything (for the most part) is a target, and you don’t have to think about the consequences of your actions. Fire and forget. I love them, but they’re not for kids, in any way.

    I’m not saying that you should discourage the natural, brawly urges that boys get around this age, as testosterone starts to rise, but an FPS isn’t the outlet for them. Why not encourage them to play something like Lego Batman? Both my 3- and 5-year olds love it. It’s a great mix of spatial puzzles and rough and tumble (baddies explode into a pile of bricks when you beat them)that are great, fun, co-operative playing experiences.

    Anyone who works making games, or selling games, will tell you the same, and it is often parents who care little of the content of the game, who let their 10-year-olds play Grand Theft Auto. It’s the industry that always bears the brunt in the newspapers, and marked out as irresponsible.

    If your husband wants to play FPSs so much, he can do it in the evenings. There are all manner of more suitable games for young kids.

    1. Hi Dean, this all started because at my brother in law’s housewarming party, my little one was given the controller for an xbox shooter game. I noticed and said ‘no’. It then transpired his grandad had been letting him play Halo when he stayed there. Apparently he can play the game – as in physically control the character etc.
      I don’t really care if adults want to play violent games, I expect them to know better than to mimic what they see. I expect them to have a clear understanding of the difference between real and not real. But at an age of ‘magical thinking’ where the lines are blurred (Santa, the tooth fairy & the Easter bunny are all encouraged beliefs by adults) I don’t believe that children have the same capability of separating the themes they see on screen from those in reality. This was confirmed this morning when watching ‘walking with dinosaurs’ on Netflix (dinosaurs are a favourite). I thought he’d enjoy it but he asked me to turn it off because “real dinosaurs are scaring me”. The graphics are so good that he didn’t get that it was pretend. I even told him it wasnt real but he insisted it was.
      Thanks for the recommendation of Lego Barman, we don’t have an Xbox, do they do it for the Wii?

  6. Your comment “you can’t seriously be comparing the computer games available in the 80’s to the realistic ones here?” suggests you believe games in the 80’s weren’t graphic or violent, if you think that then you clearly weren’t one of those playing games in the arcades, which also filtered down to home computers.

    I recall playing Renegade which was then followed by Double Dragon, these games were from a genre called “beat em ups” which as the name suggests were games that involved beating people up, Double Dragon picked up on the theme of street gangs and had the look and feel of a Death Wish movie, as far as graphic violence was concerned this game features actions little different to those in a Grand Theft Auto game, punching, kicking and beating to death your opposition with baseball bats.

    This lead to Mortal Kombat in the early 90’s which featured fully digitised characters beating each other to death which introduced the concept of a death move where an extra level of gratuitous violence was actually encouraged. It’s been listed as one of the top ten most violent computer games ever. By 2000 Soldier of Fortune had put such violence into the 3D graphic realm with its specially developed GHOUL engine that allowed individual body parts to be blown off, in Germany, the game was placed on the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons index.

    Millions of people have grown up from childhood playing such computer games yet having played these games it’s not resulted in a lack of empathy for fellow man, it’s not resulted in violent tendencies, the crime statistics we’re told have seen drops in violent crime in recent years.

    In the 70’s football violence was prominent, all from males that had grown up without computer games, I’d much prefer to see people let out their frustrations and excess testosterone in the virtual world than real world.

  7. This is really an extension of the ‘violent cinema or TV lead to violence’ argument. Clearly, historically, it doesn’t, or how would we explain pre-video/TV/cinema violence? Or that society today is arguably a lot safer than in the past. People, even from a young age, can differentiate fact and fiction. And what link could there possibly be between playing a video game (or any war game), no matter how ‘real’ it looks, and empathy: which is something we learn as we grow up in interaction with others?

    I do agree though that the people who would argue that ‘it’s human nature to be violent’ are probably the same people who two hundred years ago would argue that women and other ‘races’ are inferior, as the idea that people – or more specifically men – have a propensity to violence is a similar biologically determined argument.

  8. I wonder if I answered the wrong question then. I wholeheartedly believe that violent, 16- (Halo 4) or 17-rated (Black Ops) video games DO NOT cause violent behaviour. Absolutely not.

    However that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily appropriate for a four year old to play them. Or a seven year old for that matter.

    There’s more to bringing up a well-rounded individual engaged with age-appropriate media than just ensuring they don’t turn into a violent thug.

  10. The only other thing I’d add to this is that where kids play is really important. I have been playing video games with my kids for some years and we keep the PS3 in the living room as a social activity. But I have to be honest it is genuinely funny when my teenage son plays James Bond and tries to blow me to bits (I’m the baddy inevitably) with a shotgun! The point being it’s clear it’s a game and other people are involved and it’s for fun not for indulging yourself when you feel annoyed with the world.

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