Center on Media and Child Health

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.

What I Learned at the CCFC Summit

On Friday, I presented at the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood's Annual Summit.  My talk about research on media and sex was well-attended and lead to some great discussion among participants. 

I wanted to post about a few resources I became aware of through the Summit and pass them on to CMCH blog readers, since you may also be interested:

• Sarah Grimes, a PhD candidate at Simon Fraser University, presented her work on interactive websites and Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) for kids.  Turns out she has a blog about digital games and other technologies for children: Gamine Expedition
• In the main gathering area, there was an exhibit titled "Buy Me Something" by the talented photographer Nat Ward, who aims for these images to "challenge people to consider how toys and the mechanisms that facilitate their sale inform and reproduce a distinct set of culturally-defined values."  Click the arrow on the bottom right to see more images:  Buy Me Something
• The Media Education Foundation has a new video coming out in Fall 2008 about the commercialization of childhood.  CMCH Director Dr. Michael Rich makes an appearance around minute 3:37 in the trailer they previewed at the Summit: Consuming Kids

 

Let's Talk About Sex(ual content)

CMCH Librarian Brandy King will be presenting at the 6th Annual Summit of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.  The Summit will take place April 3rd-5th at Wheelock College, and will focus on the theme "Consuming Kids: The Sexualization of Children and Other Commercial Calamities." 

Ms. King will present research about sex and media followed by a live website tour of CMCH resources designed to help researchers pursue study on this topic.

See CMCH resources on sex and media