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Family Events...
Violent video games
leave their mark on moral reasoning
By Marybeth Hicks
Recently, I got a fancy new smart phone. As is typical, my children
already knew how to use it before I even opened the box, but that’s a
topic for another day.
Before I could even read the package insert and learn how to charge the
battery, my daughter had downloaded the game “Angry Birds” onto my
phone and was on an advanced level.
If you don’t know, “Angry Birds” is a game in which cartoon birds are
used as projectiles to hit various targets. (In the interest of
journalistic accuracy, I played a round so I could describe it to you.)
So there are these birds. They are round — as if they’ve all eaten
bowling balls — and they have angry looks on their faces. They’re
stacked like cannon balls next to a slingshot. To play the game, you
swipe your finger on the smart phone screen to pull the shot back,
launching the bird into a pyramid of bunnies. The bird explodes into a
pile of feathers.
Now you understand why the birds are angry.
I don’t know what happens after the first round, as my interest in
journalistic accuracy only goes so far. In all honesty, it’s pretty
funny, despite the likely horrified response of Audubon Society members.
Is it dangerously violent? No. I have no fear that my 13-year-old
daughter will soon start terrorizing the bunnies in our backyard by
capturing and catapulting sparrows in their direction. More
importantly, this game doesn’t draw the player into a fantasy about
acting violently toward other people.
Mostly, its effect is to wear down the battery on my cell phone, so I
only let my daughter use it when I’m forcing her to do something
unpleasant, like wait for me at the post office.
Some games really are dangerous, though.
On the other hand, many video games played by the vast majority of
American children between the ages of 7 and 18 are disturbingly
violent, according to a recent study from researchers at Simmons
College.
Violence in children’s media has been studied for decades and the
consensus is that while it doesn’t cause violent behavior, it
contributes to aggressiveness and bad attitudes. According to this
latest research, the violence in video games is taking a toll on the
development of moral reasoning in our nation’s children.
Moral reasoning is based on understanding the perspectives of others,
but the researchers found violent video games provide no perspective on
the suffering of victims and in fact, hinders this crucial
developmental step.
Seventy one percent of the games played by the children in the study
contained at least some mild violence, while 25 percent included
intense violence, blood and gore. In fact, the study found children
ages 7 to 12 routinely play games rated “M” for mature audiences, meant
for players over the age of 17.
The study also found that children play mostly the same kinds of games.
For example, kids who play video games featuring sports play mostly
that kind, while kids who play violent games play mostly those.
The most popular violent games such as Grand Theft Auto, Halo and Call
of Duty: Modern Warfare feature narratives that put players in morally
compromising situations that reward acts of violence. The lines between
good guy/bad guy often are blurry or non-existent, which means violent
actions can’t be “justified” by a moral purpose.
The point isn’t that kids who play these games will necessarily be
inspired to act violently. Rather, the study’s assessment of children’s
attitudes confirms that extended play of violent video games impedes
the development of moral reasoning. This means children can’t
distinguish right from wrong when it comes to using violence, and
sometimes believe that acting violently is the right thing to do.
But to what effect? The study doesn’t say, but you don’t have to be a
social scientist to connect the dots between the effects of violent
video games and the rampant increase in bullying and aggressive
behavior on the part of our nation’s children. That’s just one obvious
extension of a morally undeveloped character.
Playing violent video games clearly is influencing the character of our
children. As parents, we all should ask ourselves if the games our kids
play reflect the values we want to instill in their hearts.
Thanks for reading and sharing Family Events!
Take good care until next week,
Marybeth
Read the article plus this week’s question and answers to last week’s
question at Family Events
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