Center on Media and Child Health

Everyone's Playing Halo 3

The long-awaited third installment of the X-Box video game Halo was released this week.  Within the first 24 hours of its release, the game rang up $170 million in sales and more than 1 million people logged on to play. 

The game features a variety of weapons used to fight aliens and other humans along with vivid imagery of the effects of this violence. Though the game is rated M for mature audiences, it is very popular among teenagers, in part because it is so heavily marketed by a variety of kid-related tie-ins.  For example, Burger King and 7-11 have in-store promotions for the game and Mountain Dew has created Halo-themed packaging and cans, calling them "Game Fuel".

CommonSenseMedia rated the game "Pause" which indicates that parents should decide individually whether their child is developmentally mature enough to play the game. 

Back to School Newsletters

The September editions of the newsletter are up!  If you haven't already, you can see them here:

• Parents' Newsletter - The kids are going back to school - how you can use this transition time as an opportunity to create a healthy media environment?
• Teachers' Newsletter - You're back in the classroom -- how can you use media literacy in your lesson plans? 
• Researchers' Newsletter - How does the newest research on baby DVDs compare to other research?

If you'd like to receive one of these newsletters monthly, you can sign up here.

Learning Scripts for Romance

After a few weeks off, the CMCH blog is back!  There is much new research to cover over the next few days.  One new study by Rivadeneyra and Lebo examined 215 high schoolers to learn whether television affected their dating behavior.  They found that:

• Teens who watched romantic TV shows were more likely to have traditional gender views when it came to dating.
• Teens who watched soap operas were more likely to start dating earlier and to have more dating partners.

These results suggest that many teens learn dating behavior from what they see on TV.