Censorship Of Video Games

Sometimes life can throw you some strange serendipity. In that last couple of days I have been talking about censorship on television with a friend. Then today on the BBC News website was this article.

Personally I have never been that interested in video games. I am disturbed by the titles that are advertised, like Grand Theft Auto. But having not used them, I couldn't really comment on the content. However, from what I have seen I am disturbed by the casual violence and the glorification of crime that these games portray.

Now while I am in general a liberal and I do think that adults should have the freedom to choose what films they watch, the problem is that children are being allowed access to much of this material. I have experienced two examples of this; while helping out at a local school in their garden one of the children who was only about ten years old asked me if I had seen a horror film. I cant remember the title, but I knew even as I was asked it was a film that was supposed to be an adult film. I don't know if this child had parental consent to see this film, but I suspect he did from what he said, but the point is that with access so easy for children, the companies that publish films and video game need to be much more responsible.

The second example I was told about by an Education Welfare Officer, she had visited the parents of a child who was not attending school. While trying to talk to the parents, and competing for attention with the television, she realised that what the parents were watching was a Hard Core sex video. Obviously, that is an example of bad parenting.

However, even on mainstream television there are far to many examples of graphic violence. While an exposed breast at the Super bowl a few years ago, the incident that sparked my private discussions, caused such an outcry. Personally, I would rather have to explain to a child who accidentally stumbles upon nudity, or even sex on television than to try and explain acts of violence.

However there is a much wider problem with this material. It is clear that we do have a problem with violent children. While it would be far too over simplified to just blame it on videos, DVDs and Video Games, they must be having an impact. For example police officers who have to deal with the vile crime of child pornography, and have to view these images, receive psychological support as it has long been recognised that these images do disturb the viewer. Therefore an endless diet of violent images, especially on young people, must be having some effect too.

While there is no direct causal link between playing video games and the violence and crime we see on our streets, I am sure the link is there.

The piece that prompted this posting.