Raising Humans in a Digital World by Diana Graber

Author:Diana Graber
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AMACOM
Published: 2018-10-28T16:00:00+00:00

THE DOWNSIDES OF GAMING

One morning Jules, a twelve-year-old boy whose sweet face makes him look barely ten, arrived early to class. I asked him how his weekend was, and he told me he spent most of it playing GTA (Grand Theft Auto). GTA is an M-rated action-adventure video game. That means the Entertainment Software Rating Board has determined it is appropriate for “mature” players ages seventeen and older. In this game, players assume the role of one of three criminals (they can switch back and forth) who complete missions in a fictionalized version of Los Angeles or another fictionalized major city. According to a GTA game review on Common Sense Media’s website (where you will find helpful reviews on nearly everything kids do online), “Players kill not only fellow gangsters but also police officers and innocent civilians, using both weapons and vehicles while conducting premeditated crimes, including a particularly disturbing scene involving torture. Women are frequently depicted as sexual objects, with a strip club mini-game allowing players to fondle strippers’ bodies, which are nude from the waist up.”29

I didn’t know this at the time, so I responded to Jules offhandedly: “Maybe I’ll check the game out sometime.” He looked at me in abject horror. “Don’t do that, Ms. Graber—there is a lot of cussing. You wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

Jules told me that many gamers cuss freely because, they figure, “Who’s gonna hear me besides other players?” Plus, they are role-playing. How many violent criminals do you know who apologize politely before shooting someone into oblivion?

According to my young sources, foul language and bullying in video games is often directed at “squeakers,” the youngest, newest, and most naive players.

“Yeah, this squeaker started playing Call of Duty,” said Ross, another twelve-year-old boy who had joined our conversation that morning, “and everyone was cussing at him and calling him names. I could hear him softly crying, so I taught him how to use his mute button.”

While I commended Ross for this act of empathy, I couldn’t shake the image of a young child somewhere, crying in front of his screen.

“By the way, what is Call of Duty?” I asked Ross.

That’s when Troy, a wizened thirteen-year-old, chimed in. “It’s a first-person shooter game with lots of violence and gore. I started out gaming on Call of Duty a long, long time ago.” He told me he was nine years old when he first started playing the game.

“Yeah, I was a squeaker,” he said. “I remember the first time I logged on. I said, ‘Hi,’ and then everyone started cussing and bullying me. I learned all the cuss words I know in the first hour of playing that game.”

My morning conversation—a carbon copy of many I’ve had before and since at all sorts of schools—is the reason many adults hate all video games. But keeping teens from playing them, or talking about them, is an exercise in futility. A smarter approach is to find out what they’re playing, because for every violent, first-person shooter game, there’s a Minecraft.

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