GGL Wire

A study comparing the effects of “violent” media to health risks such as smoking and AIDS has concluded that violent television and videogames are almost as deadly as smoking.

The authors repeat the claim that videogames desensitize children to violent acts.

Increased heart rates, perspiration, and self-reports of discomfort often accompany exposure to blood and gore. However, with repeated exposures, this negative emotional response habituates, and the child becomes “desensitized.” The child can then think about and plan proactive aggressive acts without experiencing negative affect.

The conclusions were published in the December 2007 Journal of Adolescent Health.

The study contains a graph ranking teenage risk factors. “Violent” media ranked second, just under smoking and lung cancer.

From the Abstract:

These globe-spanning electronic communication media have not really introduced new psychological threats to our children; but they have made it much harder to protect youth from the threats, and have exposed many more of them to threats that only a few might have experienced before. It is now not just kids in bad neighborhoods or with “bad” friends who are likely to be exposed to bad things when they go out on the street. A “virtual” bad street is easily available to most youth now.

However, our response should not be to panic and keep our children indoors because the “streets” out there are dangerous. The streets also provide wonderful experiences and help youth to become the kinds of adults we desire. Rather our response should be to understand the dangers on the streets, to help our children understand and avoid the dangers, to avoid exaggerating the dangers (which would destroy our credibility), and also to try to control exposure to the extent that we can.

You can read the full text of the study here.

Via TG Daily.