How Much Do You Know About How Your Kids Play?
GAMING
The Norwalk Hour
Jamie Hammon
Boston University Washington News Service
12-14-06
WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 — With more than half of all video game sales made each year during the holiday shopping season, parents are likely to find video games right at the top of their childrens’ wish lists. But a recent study calls into question how effective and involved parents are in ensuring that their children have appropriate gaming habits – not simply the types of games played, but how often.
Though it’s no secret to most parents that gaming technology has allowed innocent and simplistic Pac-Man plots to be replaced by edgier and more realistic content, a report last month found that when it comes to their children’s video game habits, there is much parents do not know.
The 11th Annual Video Game Report Card that the National Institute on Media and the Family issued in November found a major communication breakdown between parents and their kids about video game habits. Parents, the institute said, largely overestimate the effectiveness of their role as video game gatekeepers – a role especially significant in the past year as Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo all released new gaming consoles, just in time for holiday shopping.
“If there is a simple message we can give to parents it is this – watch what your kids watch, play what your kids play,” said David Walsh, president and founder of the National Institute on Media and the Family, an independent, non-partisan group that researches the effects of mass media on children.
“Every generation of this technology brings us closer to virtual reality,” Walsh said. “And when young people spend hours and hours on interactive technology, literally rehearsing behaviors, we know that has an impact.”
In recent weeks, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) has joined Walsh’s group in press conferences to announce the video game report card, to launch a series of public service announcements to educate parents about the video game rating system, and to promote legislation that would further finance research into video games and public health.
Researchers for the report surveyed more than 1,400 fourth- and fifth-grade students and found that parents and their children had some sharply different answers to the same questions. For example, 73 percent of the parents said they used the ratings in making game purchases, but only 30 percent of kids from those same families said the same; 51 percent of the kids said their parents never talked with them about the video games they played, while only 5 percent of their parents said they never talked with their children about their games; and 39 percent of kids said they never have to ask permission before playing video games, while only 10 percent of parents said their children did not have to ask permission.
“This is a wakeup call to parents that it’s time to stop being overly optimistic about how involved you are with your kids’ video game habits, and reengage at a new level,” said Douglas Gentile, developmental psychologist and director of research for the institute.
In previous years the report focused on the gaming industry and retailers, emphasizing their role in keeping M-rated (for mature) video games out of the hands of minors. This year, however, it found that the industry and retailers are, for the most part, upholding their end of the bargain.
Minors whom the institute sent out as secret shoppers were never successful in their attempts to purchase M-rated games from Target, Best Buy and Wal-Mart. The institute also found all the new gaming consoles are equipped with parental controls similar in concept to the V-chip used in television.
In addition, the video game industry-sponsored Entertainment Software Rating Board has established a universal rating system for games and has launched a series of public service announcements over 800 radio and TV stations to educate parents and consumers about the ratings. (See accompanying box.)
“This is a lot of good news,” Lieberman said at a press conference announcing the report. “So now it’s time to focus on parents. Learn about the [rating board’s] system, learn about the independent rating systems and use parental controls.”
The rating board is an independent, non-profit body established in 1994 by the Entertainment Software Association, the trade association which represents video game manufacturers. While rating is not mandatory, virtually all games that U.S. and Canadian retailers sell are rated by the board, and most retailers and console manufacturers will stock and permit only games that carry the rating.
The rating system, identified by a symbol on the front of the game’s box and a content description on the back, consists of “EC” for early childhood, “E” for everyone, “E+10” for everyone 10 or older, “T” for teen, “M” for mature, “AO” for adults only and “RP” for rating pending.
Content descriptions specify what the game contains. An M-rated game’s content description may include alcohol references, blood and gore, profanity, nudity, sexual themes (including depictions of rape) or use of drugs. A game with an E-rating may have “edutainment” as a content description, meaning that educational skills are reinforced by the video game.
So, how are kids getting their hands on M-rated games? In many cases, through independent retailers, where 32 percent of the time the child was able to purchase the game, no questions asked.
“So, OK, the kid’s thwarted at store one, hits two more and he’s got the game,” Gentile said. “If a kid really wants an M-rated game, I promise you that kid’s got it.”
Games receive an M-rating for violence, sexual aggression, profanity or the use of drugs, alcohol or tobacco. Though violence in video games is nothing new, that violence is now much gorier and more realistic as a result of increased graphics and processing power, and, quite significantly, that violence has moved from the fringe to the mainstream.
The way an aggression researcher defines violence in a game is very specific: when intentional harm is inflicted on a game character. This excludes most sports games, where the goal is to win, and not to harm anyone.
“With the average age of a gamer today being 33, it’s not surprising that there are games created for an older, more mature audience,” ratings board President Patricia Vance said at a press conference in early December. “Even though over half of the games that we rate each year are appropriate for all ages, including young players, about 12 percent are rated mature, which means they are for ages 17 or older.”
Gentile is currently publishing a study looking at how quickly the playing of aggressive video games affects the behavior of third through fifth graders. The results, he said, were shocking.
“Kids who play more violent video games early in the school year actually change to become more aggressive by later in the school year,” he said. “I didn’t think six months was enough time” to see changes in behavior.
Lieberman has co-sponsored a bill that would finance further study of both good and bad impacts of media on children. He said he also plans to introduce legislation to pay for a program that would bring together video game developers and educators to stimulate the development of video games for educational and other purposes, like helping children deal with health problems.
But all agree that the most straightforward solution starts in the home.
It is important that parents not fall prey to the “third person effect,” the tendency to rate oneself more highly than other people, Gentile said. In this case, parents say they believe that media violence affects children in general, but not their child.
“Parents like to say, ‘Well, it doesn’t affect my kid because he knows it’s just a game,’ ” Gentile said. “Well, of course these kids know it’s just a game. That doesn’t inoculate them from the effect.”
Suggestions made to parents in the report were to follow the ratings, use parental controls, put kids on a media diet, set limits and be willing to say no and watch and play what kids are watching and playing. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no more than one to two hours of total screen time each day, including television, video games, DVDs and other uses of the computer.
“My generation are immigrants to the modern media world – our children are natives,” Lieberman said. “But we need to work together across generational lines to do everything that we can do so modern technology presents a positive experience for our children individually and for our culture as a whole.”
2006 Buying Guide for Parents
The 11th Annual Video Game Report Card that the National Institute on Media and the Family issued last month lists the ratings assigned by the Entertainment Software Rating Board for a variety of videogames (M is for mature, E is for everyone and E 10+ is for 20 and older):
| Games to Avoid for your Children and Teens | Ratings |
| Gangs of London | M |
| The Sopranos | M |
| Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories | M |
| Reservoir Dogs | M |
| Mortal Kombat: Unchained | M |
| Scarface: The World is Yours | M |
| The Godfather: Mob Wars | M |
| Saints Row | M |
| Dead Rising | M |
| Just Cause | M |
| Recommended Games for Children and Teens | Ratings |
| LEGO Star Wars II – The Original Trilogy | E 10+ |
| Mario Hoops 3 on 3 | E |
| Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz | E |
| Roboblitz | E 10+ |
| Madden Football ’07 | E |
| LocoRoco | E |
| Dance Factory | E |
| Brain Age | E |
| Nancy Drew: Danger by Design | E |
| Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: The March of the Minis | E |
