Ask the Mediatrician

My son wants Call of Duty, but how do these video games impact teen boys?

Update! This post caused some controversy when it appeared on Thrive, the Children's Hospital Boston blog.  >> See Dr. Rich's response

Q: I don’t wish for my teen son to have more “first-person shooter” experiences, and yet all he wants in this world is this Modern Warfare game. All of his friends have it already, and he says he’ll be laughed at and left out if he doesn’t get it. He said these games are so much fun…he gets a real rush. How do these games impact teen boys? Are there any positive impacts? What’s a parent to do?

-Wary of Warfare in Glencoe, IL

A: Dear Wary,

I commend you for questioning and challenging your son’s request. The game he is asking for, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, opens with a scene in which the player—an undercover member of a terrorist group—walks through an airline terminal in Russia. The player earns points by shooting as many tourists as possible, including those who are injured and crawling away.

All video games create behavioral scripts, which encourage the player to respond to the virtual environment in certain ways and rehearse those behaviors over and over. If the game is fun, the brain connects those behaviors to positive feelings.  This powerful learning experience can be positive or negative, depending on the content and goal of the game. In this case, your son is getting a rush because the video game is fun, but this is concerning because the fun is being linked to the behavior of shooting helpless people.  So the question with this, as with any video game, is what skills and behaviors you want your son to learn, and what he himself wants to practice.

Please note that the concern about first-person shooters and other violent video games is not so much that players will immediately increase their aggression level and become physically violent.  Rather, the concern is what the research shows: that playing such games shifts players’ ideas of what's normal. Those who play violent video games tend to expect the world to be a meaner place, and they become disconnected and less caring people.

Given all the evidence, I personally would never recommend that a parent give this game to a child or teen. It’s certainly true, though, that your son's argument that “everyone else has it” and that he will be left out he doesn't makes it extremely difficult to say no. But as a parent, you can provide the foresight he doesn’t yet have. Take this opportunity to talk with him about how all video games are educational and that you're saying no to this one because of what it will teach him.  Ask him what kind of person he wants to be and whether this game matches those goals. And most importantly, brainstorm with him to find other, healthier ways to get a rush.
>>Additional advice: Learn how to look up reviews and find videos of what game play is like

Enjoy your media and use them wisely,

The Mediatrician

Update! This post caused some controversy when it appeared on Thrive, the Children's Hospital Boston blog.  >> See Dr. Rich's response

Should I worry about junk food ads on kids' websites?

Q: My 7-year-old son is extremely good at navigating the Internet. In fact, he’s taught me almost everything I know about using the Web. I have software that blocks him from everything except kid sites like PBS, Nickelodeon, Disney, and the Cartoon Network, where he has spent a lot of time and they seem harmless enough, but recently I’ve been hearing about junk food ads on websites. I don’t think he looks at them, but I’m wondering whether that’s a problem anyway. Am I missing something?
-Websurfing in Washington, DC

A: Dear Websurfing,

Your impulses with regard to the Internet are right on. The Internet is a place where your son can both learn a great deal and become very technologically skilled, but it's also possible and likely that he'll be exposed to material that is not optimal for him. In an era when kids are digital natives and parents are digital immigrants, your question is extremely common.

The sites you’re allowing him to access probably won’t expose him to overt violence or sex, and that is a positive thing. But remember that pre-selecting sites isn’t enough to teach him to use media critically. Your son will see advertising  wherever he goes, online or offline, thus, it is important that he learn to think critically about all media, even those that seem harmless.

Just recently, researchers looked at the sites most used by kids, and they found that only 5 of the 77 advertised food products were things that kids should be encouraged to eat. We don’t evaluate individual sites or products, instead we try to give parents the information to make decisions that work for their family. And even though your son may not be paying specific attention to those ads, there is evidence that people exposed to online advertising think favorably about advertised brands, even if they don’t pay attention to, or even remember seeing the advertising. Advertising affects him, whether he thinks it does or not. 

To help your son think critically about the ads, explain that he is being pursued as a consumer of products as he will be all his life, and he will need to choose for himself which products are good and which are not. Together, examine ads that attract him and ask him questions about them. What is his selling? Who is it for? How does it grab his attention? What do the people who created the ad want him to do? Doing this will help him build the skills he needs to critically view and analyze the messages he’s receiving and that can help him get the most benefit and least harm from his experience on the web.

Enjoy your media and use them wisely,
The Mediatrician

Does playing the blues cause the blues?

Q: My 14-year-old son is a talented and dedicated musician. My wife and I love to see him developing his gifts, but we worry that the type of music he plays, mostly Blues, is too dark and depressing. How does music affect a teen’s sense of self, brain development, and happiness? What can we do to help him build a positive outlook for the future without obstructing his musical growth?
Music Man in Glencoe, Illinois

A: Dear Music Man,

This is a really interesting question—the way you phrased it truly acknowledges both left-brained learning and right-brained creativity, and it respects your son’s need to develop both. I applaud your focus on supporting his development as a musician while also asking critical questions about the kind of music he's playing.

There is not much research specifically on this topic, but one study found that people who were fans of the blues were no more likely to be accepting of suicide than fans of other music.  So even though the blues as a form can be quite dark and depressing to listen to, listening to them doesn't appear to negatively affect people's mental health.  In fact, playing the blues might even be a way to express emotions and experiences that would be difficult to communicate in other ways.  That seems to be how it worked for the musicians who originally developed it—they created blues in response to the particular difficulties that Black Americans faced in Jim Crow America, and it served as an outlet for their struggles and concerns.

Adolescence is a time of struggle and soul searching. Just as many of the first blues musicians used music to express frustrations, he may be using music (at least in part) to process his way through his teen years. Music of all kinds can give adolescents a way to access and express emotions that they are not yet equipped to identify or handle. In addition, by developing the deep understanding of music and lyrics that it takes to interpret and perform that music really well, your son has the potential to become an increasingly focused and critical user, as well as creator, of that medium.

If you are concerned or feel shut out of his process, the music your son plays can actually give you a way to broach topics that might otherwise feel off-limits. For example, when he plays a song you find especially dark, ask him what he thinks and likes about it. This can be a way of opening a conversation about his world, providing an opportunity to ask for insight into his process in a non-threatening, supportive and respectful way.

Enjoy your media and use them wisely,
The Mediatrician

Should I encourage my preschooler to use the computer?

Our friends over at iKeepSafe asked us to respond to this blog post.  Here is a brief summary of the question:

Q: This Summer I was surprised to find myself compulsively checking my favorite websites several times an hour.  Then we took a family vacation and I went cold turkey with no Internet.  Not only did I manage to survive without it, I realized how much extra time I suddenly had on my hands.

While my 4 year old daughter hasn’t shown any particular interest in computers, she’s been asking more often to spend time on Nick Jr.’s site. I know that today’s children need to be fully conversant in computers, but at what age?  I don’t want her to fall behind, but given my recent discovery of how much time I wasted online, I don’t want to encourage computer use in place of the fleeting joys of childhood.

A: Many parents share your concern that children be offered every possible learning opportunity, including early exposure to computers and other electronic media. And few parents take the time you took to reflect on whether that’s a good thing.

First, there’s the idea that not exposing your child to computers early will deprive them of an educational opportunity.  But there has yet to be a case of child who fell behind because she didn’t take to the Internet quickly enough, whether she started at age 2 or at age 8. Additionally, many children today have trouble mastering handwriting or drawing with markers because they’ve learned these skills on the computer before developing them in the real world.  And those skills are much more difficult to build later in life.

There’s also the issue of anxious Internet use, of the kind you describe in yourself. I recommend listening to your instinct and continuing to shield her from letting computer time overtake other activities in her life.  Helping her focus her attentions and energy on interactions with real people and objects will do much more to build her flexible and thoughtful brain than spending time with the computer will.

You should be proud of yourself for reflecting on computer use not only for your daughter, but for yourself.  Hopefully you can spend some of your newly found free time to challenge, teach and play with your daughter.  Those are the interactions kids need at her age.  If she comes to a computer after learning how to express herself in the real world, she will see it for what it is: a tool to aid people with real world tasks rather than a world unto itself.
>>Related question: Which computer games are good for my 2 year old?

Enjoy your media and use them wisely,
The Mediatrician

Do negative portrayals of Black women in movies affect how teens view them?

Q: I was made to feel ugly and repulsive (because I am a Black) when I was in middle school up to high school. I was treated like this by people of all races, including other Blacks. I want to know--do the negative portrayals of Black women in movies affects how teens view Black girls and women?
-Miss Represented, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

A: Dear Miss Represented,

In short, the answer to your question is yes: Media portrayals of Black women—or any other group of people, for that matter—affect how teens view them, regardless of whether the teens are themselves part of that group. For example, for a Black woman, media affect both how other people see her and how she sees herself.

Research suggests that when we are exposed to images repeatedly and over a long period of time, we internalize these images and measure ourselves and others against them. Therefore, when people are exposed to media that consistently portray people of color as less successful, less beautiful, and less worthwhile than White people, they tend to internalize those ideas.

Fortunately, there are conscious efforts underway by filmmakers to bring more diversity into media images and to portray people of many races and ethnicities in positive, healthful ways.  And while there's no way to undo the humiliation you were made to feel as a teen, you can help the young people in your own life by guiding them toward media choices that represent members of all races in a positive light and by helping them think critically about the media they consume.

Enjoy your media and use them wisely,
The Mediatrician