Tristan Smith's List: Video Game Censorship

• Although unable to muster credible evidence proving this thesis, legislators across America have been introducing measures that would regulate home video games or coin-operated arcade games on these grounds.
• Indianapolis and St. Louis passed laws banning the sale of violent video games to minors. (Both measures were struck down by federal courts as violations of the First Amendment.)
• While the video game industry was exploding between 1994 and 2000, juvenile (ages 15-17) violent crime arrests dropped by 44% and young adult (ages 18-24) arrests dropped by 24% according to the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
• A recent study in Nature suggested that playing action video games actually improves mental attentiveness and visual skills
• no less an authority than the self-appointed media violence watchdog Sen. Joseph Lieberman has called the video game rating system "a model" for other industries to follow
• It's none of their business.

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• Video games qualify for First Amendment protection. Like protected books, plays, and movies, they communicate ideas through familiar literary devices and features distinctive to the medium
• the State wishes to create a wholly new category of content-based regulation that is permissible only for speech directed at children.
• Since California has declined to restrict those other media, e.g., Saturday morning cartoons, its video-game regulation is wildly underinclusiv

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• Playing violent video games provides a safe outlet for aggressive and angry feelings. A 2007 study (261 KB) reported that 45% of boys played video games because "it helps me get my anger out" and 62% played because it "helps me relax."
  
• In 2005, the US had 2,279 murders committed by teenagers (27.9 per million residents) compared to 73 in Japan (3.1 per million). Per capita video game sales were $5.20 in the US compared to $47 in Japan. This example illustrates that there is no correlation between violent behavior and playing video games.
• ideo game industry voluntarily established the Entertainment Software Rating Board
• correlations between video games and violent behavior can be explained by youth predisposed to violence being attracted to violent entertainment.

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• According to a 2001 U.S. Surgeon General's report (1.3 MB) , the strongest risk factors for school shootings centered on mental stability and the quality of home life, not media exposure.
• Nearly all of the research is based on correlation, not evidence of causation, and most of the studies suffer from significant, admitted flaws in methodology as they relate to the State’s claimed interest.
• Most gamers are under 40, and most critics are non-games-playing over-40s.

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• "singles out video games and ignores other forms of entertainment, from television to movies and books to music."
• violence in schools has gone down dramatically in the U.S. over the past 20 years.

• According to federal crime statistics, the rate of juvenile violent crime in the United States is at a 30-year low.
• 90 percent of boys and 40 percent of girls play. The overwhelming majority of kids who play do NOT commit antisocial acts. According to a 2001 U.S. Surgeon General's report, the strongest risk factors for school shootings centered on mental stability and the quality of home life, not media exposure
• Most studies found a correlation, not a causal relationship, which means the research could simply show that aggressive people like aggressive entertainment. That's why the vague term "links" is used here
• If there is a consensus emerging around this research, it is that violent video games may be one risk factor - when coupled with other more immediate, real-world influences — which can contribute to anti-social behavior
• Already 62 percent of the console market and 66 percent of the PC market is age 18 or older.
• • we remove training and education from a meaningful cultural context.
   
  • we assume learners have no conscious goals and that they show no resistance to what they are being taught.
   
  • we assume that they unwittingly apply what they learn in a fantasy environment to real world spaces.
• "To shield children right up to the age of 18 from exposure to violent descriptions and images would not only be quixotic, but deforming; it would leave them unequipped to cope with the world as we know it.
• The Sims designer Will Wright argues that games are perhaps the only medium that allows us to experience guilt over the actions of fictional characters.
• But in playing a game, we choose what happens to the characters
• Almost 60 percent of frequent gamers play with friends

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• One meta-analysis of video-game studies, conducted this year by John Sherry, of Michigan State University, found little support for the belief that playing violent games causes aggression. Recently I completed my own meta-analytic review (published in the journal Aggression and Violent Behavior) of 25 violent-game studies and found that publication bias and the use of poor and unstandardized measures of aggression were significant problems for this area of research.
• there was no evidence to support either a causal or correlational relationship between video games and aggressive behavior
• from more-sensitive topics that may be real contributors to violent behavior, notably violence in families

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• video games are interactive, allowing the player to be closely involved with the main character and to control that character's actions. Second, video games directly reward the child's success in performing the actions, with visual effects, points, and opportunities to take on new challenges. Third, video games typically require almost complete attention, necessitating constant eyes-on-screen and hand-eye coordination to succeed in the game. Finally, video games are designed to be incredibly engaging and "fun," often leading children to slip deeply into a "flow state" in which they may be at increased susceptibility to the messages of the game

• At the same time, some experts believe that video games can be put to good use in the classroom and at home.
• says that people who aren't very "agreeable" (say, the kind of friend who will never give you a ride home because it's out of his or her way) seem more affected by violent video games. "Already high levels of aggression increase in people with personality problems," he adds.
• Anderson agrees. "Violent games aren't going to turn a normal kid into a school shooter," he says.
• 92 percent of teens who aren't addicted.
• Because many teachers are fascinated with video game technology, they are working on ways to bring it into the classroom

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• Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City  Rockstar Games  Mature  Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs and Alcohol

• Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

• Worse, in a sense, is that the Oklahoma bill singles out video games and ignores other forms of entertainment, from television to movies and books to music

• "Self-regulation is the only acceptable solution to concerns about children playing violent video games."