Violent movies: Kids at risk

2005-02-18 09:50

Paris - Violence on TV, home movies and video and computer games has a major short-term effect on young children, boosting the risk of aggressive behaviour or fear, British researchers say.

In a review of the best scientific evidence, they warn that youngsters, especially boys, are at risk from watching unsupervised TV programmes, video movies and games that have violent scenes.

"The availability of video film, satellite and cable TV in the home allows children to access violent media inappropriate to their age, development stage and mental health," they write in next Saturday's issue of The Lancet.

"Parents and caregivers might be recommended to exercise the same care with adult media entertainment as they do with medication and chemicals around the home," they warn.

"Carelessness with material that contains extreme violent and sexual imagery might even be regarded as a form of emotional child maltreatment."

The article, written by University of Birmingham psychologists Kevin Browne and Catherine Hamilton-Giachritsis, looked at six "meta-analyses" - overviews of research - on the effects of media violence on children and violence.

These studies, all of them from North America, comprised two that focussed on the effects of violence in TV and films, and four that focussed on violence in video and computer games.

The North American researchers used two main techniques - laboratory-style assessment of children's behaviour after they had watched scenes of violence, and investigations in the community to see whether children who watched lots of violent scenes were more prone to violence or law-breaking.

'Weak evidence'

From this work, the British duo conclude that violent imagery clearly has "short-term effects" by arousing emotions in younger children, "increasing the likelihood of aggressive or fearful behaviour."

The short-term effects on older children and teenagers, as well as the impact in the long-term, is unclear, mainly because so little quality research has been carried out.

There is only "weak evidence" from studies that a child who has been watching screen violence will be directly motivated to commit a crime, add Browne and Hamilton-Giachritsis, cautioning however that this too is a largely unexplored area.

The authors admit that the picture is complex, noting that there is evidence that family and social influence can amplify the effects of exposure to violent imagery.

For instance, a child that has grown up in a violent family is likelier to become more aggressive after watching film violence than a child who has grown up in households where there is no violence.

But even when parenting, socio-economic status and intelligence are taken into account, some of the effects of media violence remain, and this is what attests to the problem, especially given the proliferation of home media.

- AFP