Can children "catch" violence from video games?

A few days ago (6/27: "Uh oh, here we go . . .") I wrote about the Supreme Court decision that removed a California ban on children's access to violent video games. The decision was based on the First Amendment right to free speech, and it struck down a California law that restricted children's access to video games that contain violence.

I did not mean to pass judgment on whether children are harmed by playing video games that contain violence. My point had to do with our society's hypocrisy in allowing access to violence but restricting access to sexual materials -- which extends to banning books on homosexuality in school libraries, etc. That is, we have a double standard in "protecting" children from sex but not from violence.

This question of whether such games are harmful was taken up in a New York Times op-ed piece by Cheryl Olson, a public health researcher. She says that this is a complex subject that is not easily answered. Too much anecdotal "evidence" has been cited (kids who become violent after playing video games or watching violent movies). But what is cause and what is effect, and is there actually any effect? That is the question.

Olson wrote:

We know virtually nothing . . . about how youths who are already prone to violent behavior . . . use these games. Do they play them differently from the way other children do? Do they react differently?

Kids who become violent have often experienced or witnessed actual violence first hand. Some would argue that games like this, or war games with guns, help a child (or an adult) sublimate his own aggression rather than acting on it.

Olson also points out that,

"despite parents' fears, violence in video games may be less harmful than violence in movies or on the evening news."

Video games are usually animated; the characters obviously not live humans. As one 13 year old in Olson's study told her:

"Everybody knows it's not real."

And children seem to make that distinction at a young age.

The other important piece of data is the FBI's report that

youth violence continues to decline and is at its lowest rate in years.

This has happened during the burgeoning years of easy access to video games.

So: no condemnation of video games from me. They could even be a good thing, as far as violence is concerned. We just don't know enough yet.

Ralph