violent video games

Not one to keep his opinion to himself, former presidential candidate Ralph Nader has come down hard on video games. In fact, he has gone as far as to call the companies that make them "electronic child molesters."

In an interview with Politico yesterday, Nader blasted President Obama's gun control package that was unveiled last week. The two-time Green Party presidential candidate said that the president's plan needs to go further in regulating video game creators that add violence to their games.

"Television program violence? Unbelievable. Video game violence? Unprecedented," Nader told Politico. "… Read more

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) has introduced legislation that calls for an investigation into violent video games and their impact on children in the wake of last week's horrific Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

In a statement released yesterday, Rockefeller said that his legislation enlists the National Academy of Sciences to "investigate the impact of violent video games and other content on children's well-being." If the organization is given the green light, it will present its findings within 18 months to Congress, the FTC and the FCC.

"Recent court decisions demonstrate that some people still do … Read more

Video games are the subject of so many studies, not to mention findings. Some suggest cognitive benefits, others behavioral issues that may or may not persist over time.

Many of these studies are small enough to require further investigation, and the journalists reporting on them often confuse correlation (when results happen in tandem) with causation (when one action is shown to result from another).

A new study out of Ohio State University suffers from a small sample size (70 participants), but its findings -- that people who play violent video games for three consecutive days show increases in aggression and hostility … Read more

Researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine have been studying the effects of media violence for more than a decade. Now, for the first time, they are showing that violent video games directly alter brain activity--not after years of play, but after one week.

It must be noted that the researchers, who presented their findings at this week's Radiological Society of North America annual meeting in Chicago, studied only 28 young men, ages 18 to 29. In other words, these findings are preliminary at best.

Still, the small study shows a direct relationship between playing violent video games … Read more

The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down California's attempt to ban the sale of violent video games to minors, arguing that the current ratings system is enough to let parents make informed decisions about what to buy. Unlike the MPAA's rating system, which led me and my 4-year-old to "Cars 2." Thanks for that, MPAA. Also, LulzSec tucks its puppykicker tail and runs away, but not before hacking a librarian and book-sharing Website. Nice.

Editors' note: This is a guest column. See Larry Downes' bio below.

The U.S. Supreme Court today heard arguments in Schwarzenegger v. EMA, a case that challenges California's 2005 law banning the sale of "violent" video games to minors. The law has yet to take effect, as rulings by lower federal courts have held it to be an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment.

There's little doubt that banning the sale of nearly any content to adults violates the protections of free speech, including, as decided last year, video depictions of cruelty to animals.

In … Read more

A whopping 72 percent of adults believe a law should remain in place to block the sale of "ultraviolent or sexually violent" video games, according to a poll commissioned by Common Sense Media.

The survey, which includes data from 2,100 adults interviewed last month, found that adults have a real problem with violent and sexually explicit titles. In fact, 65 percent of parents said that they're "concerned about the impact of ultraviolent video games on their kids." And 75 percent of parents said that they "would give the video game industry a negative … Read more

Fox is essentially the end of network TV; we wish Russian Roulette would return in the place of Moment of Truth. Plus, we're excited for GTA IV, and will we see a 3G iPhone within 60 days? Either way, as long as it plays Quake, we're fine with it.

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