Center on Media and Child Health

Take This Game and Run With It

Back in April we told you about an "active-adventure" video game in development by students at Carnegie Mellon.  The Pittsburgh News interviewed the creators and got to see the game in action! 

Players run on a pad when they want their character to run on-screen; jump when they want the character to jump; and step forward and swing their arm when they want the character to punch. The creators are hoping that this game offers a full-body action experience to combat the sedentary nature of most video games.  See video of game play

When is too much...well, too much?

When it comes to children's video game use, this question is not easy to answer, but a recent article in U.S. News and World Report highlights the importance of asking by stating that 8.5 percent of 8-to-18-year-old gamers can be considered pathologically addicted.

Although the American Psychiatric Association does not yet recognize game addiction, recent research out of the Stanford University School of Medicine has shown that "areas of the brain responsible for generating feelings of addiction and reward are activated during game play." And plenty of parents have the anecdotal evidence to prove it.

See CMCH's February Parent Perspective for one parent's experience with her daughter's gaming addiction.

**Update** 05/15/08:  One of our readers noted that the President of the American Medical Association recently issued a commentary on video game overuse.

Women are Sex Objects and Black Men are Thugs?

Since last week’s release of Grand Theft Auto IV, there has been an upsurge in concern about how violence in video games affects those who play them. But it’s not only their violence that’s raising eyebrows— concern is also mounting over their use of stereotypes. A Boston Globe article addresses the “growing number of gamers and scholars criticizing the lack of diversity and high proportion of stereotypes in video games.”

Some people argue that stereotypes are an acceptable form of comedy and that seeing them represented in media does not affect people’s views of the world. The research, however, suggests otherwise. Several recent studies show that video games’ stereotypical portrayals of gender and race may be harmful for young people.

One study suggests that video games, like other forms of media, “are sources of information that children and young adults may use to determine what behaviors and attitudes are considered appropriately masculine and feminine.” That finding is especially troubling given that video games overwhelmingly portray men as aggressive and violent, while women are shown as hyper-sexualized objects.

Likewise, racial stereotypes abound and black men are unlikely to be represented as anything other than thugs or athletes. A forthcoming study explores the effects of such stereotypes on players of both majority and minority racial backgrounds.

For more information, see the following studies:

• Fair play? Violence, gender and race in video games
• Video game characters and the socialization of gender roles: Young people's perceptions mirror sexist media depictions
• Social evaluations of stereotypic images in video games: Unfair, legitimate, or "just entertainment"?

Infant TV Associated with Limited Verbal Interactions

In a new study by Mendelsohn et al , researchers studied the TV behavior of 154 low-income mothers and their 6-month-old infants.  97% of the mothers reported that their infants watched TV every day.  The researchers observed that the parents interacted with their children just 23% of the time that the TV was on.

As CMCH mentions in our guide to media and developmental stages, infants and toddlers need stimulation in three main ways, none of which are provided by television-watching: interacting with people, interacting with their physical environment, and solving open-ended problems. 

Glamorizing Thinness through Pro-Anorexia Websites

Last week, the French parliament’s lower house adopted a bill that would make it illegal to publicly glamorize or encourage extreme thinness. In particular, the bill cracks down on “pro-ana”—or pro-anorexia—websites, where people with eating disorders can go for advice on how to lose weight, for photos of waif-like celebrities that offer “Thinspiration,” and for general support.

Pro-ED (eating disorder) websites have raised controversy for as long as they've existed--in fact, when public, most are taken down within days of appearing on the web. And although some call these sites sanctuaries for people with common experiences, others see them as "encouraging prolonged nutritional deprivation that would...[expose] them to risk of death or directly compromise health," which would make them illegal under this bill.

See research about pro-anorexia websites:

• Bardone-Cone et al (2007). "What does viewing a pro-anorexia website do? An experimental examination of website exposure and moderating effects."
• Bardone-Cone et al (2006). "Investigating the impact of pro-anorexia websites: a pilot study."
• Dias (2003). "The ANA sanctuary: Women's pro-anorexia narratives in cyberspace."
• Fox et al (2005). "Pro-anorexia, weight-loss drugs and the Internet: An 'anti-recovery' explanatory model of anorexia."

April Newsletters: Electronics Recycling, Food and TV

The monthly CMCH e-newsletters are now available for April.  To subscribe, see www.cmch.tv/newsletter.asp

• Parents' Issue
• Teachers' Issue
• Researchers' Issue

Grand Theft Auto: Typical Controversy

The Grand Theft Auto video game series sparks controversy every time a new game is released, and Tuesday's release of the 4th game will likely follow the same pattern.  First week revenue is expected to reach $360 million. 

Following a storyline that offers players the chance to drive recklessly (and in this new version, drunk), carjack any vehicle, evade police, fight loan sharks, and sleep with prostitutes, the game is rated M for Mature. New in this version, players will be able to engage online in groups of up to 16 people.

What does research show about how video games affect players? 

• See studies from the CMCH Database of Research
• See Parent Pages

 

Earth Day and Turnoff Week are Here Again!

Today is Earth Day and we at CMCH encourage you to recycle, donate, or sell your unused electronics.  Getting them out of your house or office will help your family reduce the amount of media they use, help others who can use items you no longer want, and help the Earth by making sure materials are properly disposed.

This week also marks Turnoff Week, designed for families to spend time away from TV and other screen-time entertainment and explore alternative activities.  The American Academy of Pediatrics has teamed up with the We Can! campaign to promote three important behaviors: improved food choices, increased physical activity and reduced screen time.

**Update 4/24/08** Newsweek has listed our Spring Cleaning resources as one of their Top Picks for the Week!

Eyes on (Cyber)Bullying

As internet use and other electronic forms of communication have become increasingly prevalent among young people, a new form of bullying has been on the rise: cyberbullying. This form of bullying involves “posting hurtful, embarrassing, or threatening text or images using the Internet, cell phones, or other communication devices.” And as difficult as any bullying can be to detect, cyberbullying poses the additional challenges of being anonymous and easy to hide.

That’s where Eyes on Bullying comes in. This new multimedia bullying prevention program, developed in part by CMCH Senior Scientist Ronald G. Slaby, PhD, provides resources to help parents, children, and caregivers address and prevent bullying of all kinds. The website contains information about bullying, as well as activities, resources, and a toolkit that parents and caregivers can download for free.

The program is also hosting three national teleseminars on topics related to bullying. The second, entitled “The Growing Problem of Cyberbullying,” will occur on Tuesday May 6, from 2 to 3 p.m. EST. See the website to sign up or, if you are unable to attend the teleseminars, to download podcasts and transcripts of them after they air.

"Active-Adventure" Video Game in Development

The following was written by Garth DeAngelis, a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center.  To learn more about this project, see the team's blog. 

In the past 20 years, the percentage of overweight adolescents in the United States has more than doubled --  nearly 30% of American children today are considered obese or overweight. There are numerous reasons for this disturbing fact, but our team is striving to address one of them: the sedentary nature of video games.

There is an unfortunate correlation between the increase in child obesity and the popularity of video games. In 1999, the average child played video games for 29 minutes a day. According to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), that number has more than doubled to approximately 63 minutes per day in 2007.  What can be done about this?

Since the 1980s, products have been released that merged movement and gaming such as Nintendo’s Power Pad (see original commercial) and Dance Dance Revolution (see DDR champs in action).   However, there has never been an “exergame” that combined traditional elements of gaming with active “exercise-based” inputs to create an immersive story with free exploratory navigability in an open world in the vein of a Zelda or Dungeons & Dragons epic.

The success of the Nintendo Wii (see demo) led us to believe that a game could be created that would combine exercise and fantasy worlds.  After meeting with medical experts at University of Pittsburgh’s Medical Campus, they recommended designing a way to increase a child’s heart rate when playing. We immediately thought of the success of the DDR dance pad. After extensive research, we couldn’t find any other game that re-designed the dance pad to be used for a non-dancing/simulation game.

We knew we could literally place the child in a video game hero’s shoes by re-purposing the foot pad. To make our hero jump over a chasm while being chased by a menacing enemy, the player will jump in their living room; when our hero unleashes a three-step melee combo on an antagonist, the player will not only swing their arms, but move their feet in conjunction to mimic the attack of their avatar. The child will be actively engaged in a traditional action-adventure experience, but their mind will be focused in the ‘flow’ of gameplay, not on burning calories. We believe this can be done precisely with our project, The Winds of Orbis: An Active-Adventure.

Our goal is not to supplant traditional exercise or sports activities. Rather, we hope to replace the sedentary 30 to 60 minutes a day that the average child spends sitting on the couch moving only their thumbs with an experience that will encourage them to stand up, move, and sweat while playing the type of game they already love with a smile on their face.