Paper presented at the Children, Culture, and Violence Conference, University of Florida; March 20-1, 2003
Abstract:
The most recent debate over violence in the media has focused a great deal
on video games and the danger that mature themed video games pose to children.
While the complaints that children should not have access to material in video
games that are denied to them in other visual media - like film and television
- is valid, the problems with banning and regulating video games are not as
easily solved as they may seem. This essay seeks to clarify some of the media
hype surrounding the types of video games available, the themes and concepts
that underly these games, and the reasons that video games are good and necessary
for many children. Many studies have analyzed the effects of watching and playing
violent acts with video games, but these studies fail to address the manner
in which these acts are contextualized within the video games and the children
that play these games. These studies also fail to address why video games have
grown so popular so quickly, and the benefits that these underlying reasons
offer. Most children do not play video games to see the newest super-death move
or to see how large of an explosion they can create. Instead, most children
and adults play video games because they are enjoyable and rewarding. For many
children the rewards of video game playing are offered in school, neighborhood
play, family relationships, extracurricular activities, and other media. But,
as more children grow up in single family and latch key homes, video games provide
benefits that are not met elsewhere and that cannot otherwise be met because
of the limits of their situations. This essay will cover the benefits of video
games, including learning cultural and community rules , problem and puzzle
solving, strategic and critical thinking skills, spatial exploration when all
other spaces prove unsafe, presenting relevant stories that children can use
to understand their own situations , and more. Overall, this essay will show
that video games present both positives and negatives for children, and will
offer suggestions on how to best balance these forces to ensure that the children
most in need of these positives will not be again hurt by policy that seeks
a simplistic resolution that denies these complexities.