Grand Theft Childhood

I know you’ve all read those reports and papers about how violent video games make children violent in real life. These are mostly conducted in labs with violent stimulus, to see if the children who are hooked up to monitoring equipment, react violently. Well frankly 5 hours of hearing a buzzer go off randomly is going to make anyone violent, but that has little to do with video games.

Finally, someone has actually decided to ASK the kids if there is a correlation between violent video games and their emotions. The book is entitled “Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do”, and is written by Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson from Harvard Medical School. It is available at amazon.com. But please keep in mind, we’re talking about correlation here, not causation. There’s still debate as to whether or not violent video games beget violent children, or if it is just a matter of violent children are drawn to more violence in their entertainment, whether that be games, movies or social activities. Personally, I’m quite convinced it is the latter, simply because I grew up watching intensely violent cartoons, however they did not inspire me beat someone over the head with an anvil.

Via: Reuters