Christianity Today Magazine on Video Games

In their excellent editorial, Deadening the Heart, Christianity Today takes resounding issue with Steve Johnson's latest pronouncement: that violent video games, like the Grand Theft Auto family, can serve as "safety valves" for pent-up frustration--with what, CT doesn't quote him as saying. CT then cites the American Psychological Association, who clearly believe otherwise. I quote, as CT does: that the time that young people spend playing these games "increases aggressive thoughts, aggressive behavior, and angry feelings among youth."

Let's back up a minute. What do we mean by "youth" anyway? We mean human beings between the ages of thirteen and twenty-one, give or take a year on each side. Up to four hundred years ago, we used to train such people to be responsible adults. But in the 1950's, a generation of fathers came back from the Second World War and did not supervise their children as they ought to have done. The result was the creation of the first "youth culture" and the concept of "teen-ager."

Ironically, to judge from motion pictures like Blackboard Jungle and The Wild One, adults knew that their young people were running wild. (Indeed, The Wild One had its basis in a real and tragic series of events in a small California town.) And yet the adults didn't do anything about it--except to lavish vast sums on the gratification of the young people's every whim. Those teen-agers became the current generation of adults, and many of them are not even growing up. They're trying to be "pals" of their children--with results that, in some cases, are actually trying their children's patience.

That is the point that the APA has missed. Video games like Grand Theft Auto glorify everything that two generations of adults have allowed to go wrong.

I can only ask those of the current generation who have not gone permanently wild, to step away from the brink. The "youth culture" has no redeeming features whatsoever. Video games are only part of the problem. Television carries programming that is at least as bad--and today the original Three Networks don't even bother with such quaint old-fashioned courtesies as advising parents to exercise judgment and discretion. The movies are getting worse all the time, and even when they don't have overt (and pointless) sex and violence, they explore patently unedifying themes. Some of my fellow churchmen don't even bother going to the movies; others run TV-less households. I can't blame them. And I certainly would never advise allowing any video-game hardware into your house.

And if anyone tells you about needing a "safety valve," I would suggest that the best "steam control" is self-control--taught the old-fashioned way, with hands-on supervision.