Well NIMF has once again released it yearly report card on the gaming industry. This marks a full decade of crying about kids playing violent video games with dire warnings about increases in agressive behavior among kids that kill pixels.
There are some good things in this report. They do reffernce more than one research project. However it there is still only one significant study that has been done and it has long since been questioned. Far from the universal scientific condemnation touted in their report card. However they at least do admit the flaws of the various studies refferenced. Yet even so they then proceed to draw very serious conclusions from them. This is not a good way to make an arguement. Point out all your evidence is flawed with regards to actually measuring the impacts caused by violent games and ONLY violent games then say your conclusions about that impact are good anyway. I could quote the relevant material but you would do best to read it all in context through the link above.
What puzzles me most is that in none of their discussions did they mention ANY attempt to deal with the issue of whether or not video game Cause violence. Or attraction to video games is a function of a violent nature. IE is it a symptom or is it a cause. Also there are no hard number beyond things like percentages of kids that own/play video games and the number of kids involved inthe studies. What were the precentage increases ? The margins of error ? When correlation was found were we talking a 90% increase ? Or a 5% with a 2% margian of error ?
Another thing in particular that bugged me was their use of desensitation through exposure. It is talked about like it is a horrible condeming fact. And yet desensitation to stimulus (ANY stimulus) through exposure is a universal response. How would this be damning ? If you took a control group and exposed them to no violent games for a given length of time and then exposed them to REAL violence and measured their sensitivity vrs a group that played violent games and then was exposed the REAL violence. If the game group showed a marked desensitized reaction to actual violence I might start paying a bit more attention.
In the end I think limiting what games kids can and cannot play is not the domain of government and society at large. If violent games where half as important in developing a childs behavior as these groups like to claim we would have a wave of youth violence across the nation that was out of this world as they have gone through greate lengths to proove just how pervasive the practive of young kids playing games with graphic violence is. Instead we have lower incidence of youth violence. Less juvenile deliquents as a percentage of the population. Almost entirely across the board the US is LESS measurably violent today than it was 10 years ago when these report cards started. By the logic used in most of this report card I could then claim that there should be more playing of violent video games.... not less.
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