Media Violence and Children A Complete Guide for Parents and Professionals

Reader Reviews
Great book....Good seller....Really fast delivery too!!!
By Gregory A. Mendez

Great book for all of you who are interested in Video game violence. I am in Graduate School studying video game violence and am using this great book for my thesis. It is very up to date, and a lot more reliable, in a topic/genre with a lot of unrealiable sources.

I got the book faster than I thought I would, about a week early!!!

Everyone's An Expert
By Andrew Raczkowski

It seems like everyone's an expert on this topic lately. And frankly, I, as both a gamer and a game developer, am sick of it. For every so-called study that concludes games and media are a direct influence on violent behavior, three more clinical studies conclude just the opposite. Read this book if you like, it's an interesting look at another person's view (I'm not using the word "opinion," since the authors try to remain fairly neutral while presenting as much material as possible). Quite a few studies are cited, although several of them were not in controlled environments.

The fact of the matter is, it's very difficult to rule one way or another. Violent behavior is a result of many factors; often genetics, parental attention, environmental stimulus, internal psychology and sometimes pathology, and an infinite number of other variables. The authors present this idea as well, and they do it better than some other politically minded "ban violent videgames" type books.

The truth is, as the authors have written, digital media is only one factor that needs to be monitored by parents, where the responsibility should ultimately lie. Certain age groups should not be exposed to certain stimulus, least of all without proper guidance, which many parents seem to ignore.
All in all, this is a decent book. Much better than several others, and better than listening to Hillary Clinton's and Jack Thomson's accusations and generalizations. My personal feelings obviously color this review, but don't let it color your opinion of the book: it is actually pretty good for a topic where there is as much misinformation as information.
Read it, do some of your own research, and form your own opinions.
And most importantly, pay attention to ratings on all media. They exist for a purpose.