PBS Attempts to Debunk Myths about Video Games

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PBS has published an essay by MIT professor Henry Jenkins, attempting to debunk what the author perceives as fiction and separate it from what he considers facts substantiated by scientific research. He comes up with such brilliant arguments as:

It's true that young offenders who have committed school shootings in America have also been game players. But young people in general are more likely to be gamers — 90 percent of boys and 40 percent of girls play. The overwhelming majority of kids who play do NOT commit antisocial acts.

Without mentioning that the fact 90% boys and 40% girls play games has no immediate bearing on the validity of the claim that violent games incite violence or that the fact that the overwhelming majority of players doesn't commit antisocial acts doesn't automatically mean that the minority who does commit those may not have been affected. He also doesn't mention that the overwhelming majority of kids doesn't commit antisocial acts (if 90% boys play and the overwhelming majority of players doesn't commit antisocial acts, then even if the whole remaining 10% committted such acts, the vast majority would still not -- for example), which is especially curious, considering how he didn't fail to mention that most kids play games.

The parts that follow afterwards are more appealing, such as:

3. Children are the primary market for video games.

While most American kids do play video games, the center of the video game market has shifted older as the first generation of gamers continues to play into adulthood. Already 62 percent of the console market and 66 percent of the PC market is age 18 or older. The game industry caters to adult tastes. Meanwhile, a sizable number of parents ignore game ratings because they assume that games are for kids. One quarter of children ages 11 to 16 identify an M-Rated (Mature Content) game as among their favorites. Clearly, more should be done to restrict advertising and marketing that targets young consumers with mature content, and to educate parents about the media choices they are facing. But parents need to share some of the responsibility for making decisions about what is appropriate for their children. The news on this front is not all bad. The Federal Trade Commission has found that 83 percent of game purchases for underage consumers are made by parents or by parents and children together.

Although the professor starts faulting the lack of observance of ratings while he also tries to prove that violent games don't affect kids (or even to point out that there's no proof to that). Well, I would think that either ratings serve a purpose and should be observed (which means violent games to affect children), or violent games don't affect children and thus ratings aren't necessary and mention thereof is pointless. But no...

Read more from the professor at PBS and tell us what you think.

[ December 15, 2005, 04:19: Message edited by: chevalier ]