Last week's release of Grand Theft Auto IV - complete with lap-dancin strippers and splatter blood - renewed the debate about what violent video games are doing to the American family.
But how much do we know about the im pact of gaming ?
The reality is we don know enough, often worry about the wrong things, instead of more subtle effects of violent video games, and ignore benefits, according to Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson, authors of "Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth about Violent Video Games."
"For most kids and most parents the bottomline results of our research can be summed up in a single word: relax," Kutner, who along with Olson is on the Harvard Medical School faculty, has said.
When parents confront video games, violent or not, they may want to just say no. But a better response can be to start talking and playing before you decide what you want to say.
With a rating for ages 17 and up, Grand Theft Auto IV clearly isn't meant for youngsters, and few would support let kids play a game that allows them to beat a cop.
But many parents are realists and know teenagers find ways to get what they are denied. Parents, however, have a growing arsenal of software, Web sites and tactics to cope with o games. "The kids kind of prey on their parents' ignorance with this kind of stuff," said John Davison president of one of those tools, Web-based What hey Play: The Parent's Guide to Video Games. "You need to arm people with'so here is why you can't play this game, "' or why you can.
There also is a broader problem. We are just beginning to understand the impact of modern media on children of all ages. As media changes at warp speed, research struggles to keep pace.
Parents often are even further behind and a quick Google search of violent video games only adds to their confusion because it turns up fodder for both panic and calm.
But Harvard's Kutner and Olson argue that we sometimes worry about the wrong things. Instead of breeding ultra-violent zombies, their two-year research found a correlation between playing a lot of mature violent games and bullying, fighting at school and poor grades. But they also found that children draw clear distinctions between screen violence and the real thing and that video games often are a social tool rather than an isolating experience. So Kutner and Olson urge parents not to overreact. the 1950 s society nicked that comic books threatened the nation's moral fiber, and at the turn of the 20 th century people worried paperback novels would corrupt young girls, according to the husband-wife team, who founded Harvard's Center for Mental Health and Media.
"We have a long history of panicking over the introduction of new media," Kutner said. "We have no evidence this is different."
Even before the game's release, some were taking action.
The Chicago Transit Authority indicated it would pull Grand Theft Auto IV bus ads, Fox News and GamePolitics blog reported, and the Parents Television Council was calling on retailers not to sell the new game.
For years researchers and politicians hav worried about grap video games, and there have been hundreds of studie linking violent media and aggression.
"After 40-plus years of research, one might think the debate about medi lence effects would be over," Iowa State University professor Craig Anderson wrote in an article on the American Psychological Association Web site.
Kutner doesn't dismiss concerns, but suggests a deep breath and a lot more research into what's really happening and what the outcomes are.
Then there are parents, including Gail Hudson, who are caught in the middle. Hudson, who lives in the Seattle neighborhood of Queen e, doesn't like the iolence she sees when her 16-year-old son plays the wildly popular Halo game. But, she sees the shooting because his Xbox Live console is in the family room, not his bedroom, and she has een known to sit with him," and he hates that. " "And I will usually start commenting … ' God this seems like a lot of shooting, "' says Hudson, coeditor of "I Wanna Be Sedated: 30 Writers on Parenting Teenagers. " "I kind of make him talk about it with me. "She also notices a social dimension, as her son chats with neighborhood friends over his headset about homework and earning driver's licenses as they hunt down opponents. "We present our concerns about it in a way that creates dialogue," says Hudson, whose son has played an earlier version of Grand Theft Auto, though not in house. "He has opinons, and we listen. "She also sets limits on how long he can play.
Limits on time and content are critical, says Hilarie Cash, co-author of "Video Games & Your Kids," ue out in June. "I am shocked by the lackadaisical attitude of parents," on these points, Cash added. The Redmond-based therapist suggests parents hold off on video games until their children are 7, then allow no more than an hour a day in elementary school.
Cash also suggests a few technological tools. If your kids play PCbased games, you can buy Spector Pro software to monitor your family's key strokes, Web site visits and game playing.
On Xbox 360, Mom or Dad can limit how long and what rated games their children can play. If a parent forgets the access code, the Xbox has to go back to the factory to prevent kids from resetting codes behind their parents' backs.
At its core, though, gaming and parenting is about trust, What They Play's Davison said, and that trust is built on talking and playing with your kids.
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