CAMBRIDGE, MA — Porn and video games bear the brunt of society’s blame for luring children off the straight and narrow path to a healthy adulthood. A new book by Harvard Medical School researchers, however, lets at least video games off the hook.Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do by Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olsen pokes all sorts of holes in common theories about the relationship between violent video games and violent behavior.
“What I hope people realize is that there is no data to support the simple-minded concerns that video games cause violence,” Kutner told Reuters News Service.
The data Kutner and Olsen use to support their conclusions were gleaned from a two-year study of more than 1,200 middle-school students. Conducted outside the sterile confines of a lab, the study focused on interviews with the kids.
In defense of the anti-violence camp, the study did find a correlation between aggression and playing violent video games, but the researchers were quick to point out a correlation doesn’t necessarily indicate a causal relationship. It may simply be that kids who naturally are prone to aggression also are most attracted to violent games, Kutner and Olsen noted.
In concluding, Grand Theft Childhood echoes a familiar refrain from the adult entertainment industry: Parents must keep a watchful eye on their offspring. Not only can early parental intervention defuse a potentially damaging obsessive relationship with gaming of any kind, but parental involvement in all aspects of children’s lives often leads to more balanced maturation.
