Last night I finished Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do. My interest was largely piqued because of my hobby (PC gaming) and my interest in psychology. Aside from being my undergraduate major, I had planned on a career in that field before deciding on law.
The book is excellent, cutting through all the fearmongering about video games and giving good, solid advice to parents. Perhaps more importantly, it puts electronic games into context. An important part of the book discusses criticisms of various new media over the last 150 years or so. The discussion begins with the dime novels of the mid to late 1800s, then covers film, radio, and comic books. The point is to show that the same type of things uninformed alarmists say about video games today has already been said about all those other media in the past.
The book also does a good job of tearing apart the research claims of anti-game researchers by pointing out flaws in their various studies. Examples include drawing inferences on overall aggression by measuring how long a study subject blows an air horn. All of these various attempts at putting gaming in context and cutting through to what we do, and don't, know about gaming is a great service to parents and voters alike.
Second, the authors conducted some original research which should put parents' minds at ease. They found, generally, that children had no trouble distinguishing games from reality, and recognized that the games were just that: games. Just as we might watch a film or read a book to explore some aspect of life or humanity that is not part of our everyday lives, so do children--teens, really--play some M-rated games to play in a world that is not their own. Far from adopt or idolize the game, they recognize the essential other-ness of that world, and are fully aware of the impossibility of making it a reality.
The other important part of this book is the practical advice for parents. I think that the most important part of this advice is that parents are encouraged to teach their children general media literacy, not just limited to games. This makes perfect sense because games are not really a separate category; they are another form of media. It's better to provide children with the tools that they can use to evaluate any kind of media than it is to demonize any one in particular. I've long been an advocate of media literacy and critical thinking, so this seemed like great advice.
Of course, there is also more game-specific advice, as well. Parents should get familiar with game ratings, and the book provides web sites to help parents learn more about the games that their children want or already play. But because parents can only exercise limited control over what their children play (what does a child play at his or her friend's house?), I think general media literacy is generally more important.
Overall, it's not only a good book for parents, but also for gamers who want to have a quick overview of the state of the public marketplace of ideas when it comes to games. I recommend it.
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