By Jerome L. Singer and Dorothy G. Singer, Yale University
One of the greatest developments of the nineteenth century in industrial Europe, Canada and the United States was the recognition that children were no longer to be forced into slave-like labor from their earliest years. The health of society depended on treating children as a special category of humans, protected as much as possible from physical and social exploitation and exposed to the best available medical care and to opportunities for reasonable education. As a result, constitutional and legal regulations were widely established for the care of children. In a recent challenging New York Times Op-Ed article, Joel Bakan, a Canadian Professor of Law, has identified a serious issue, corporate uses of the electronic media to influence children’s buying choices; thus threatening their psychological, social, and even their physical development.
The crisis has emerged as corporations in the United States have been recognized as legal persons. Hence, their efforts in commercial areas to induce and encourage product sales have been protected under “freedom of speech” principles. A recent law in California that would prohibit the sale of violent videogames to children has been overturned by the Supreme Court in 2011 on free speech grounds, despite considerable research concerning the possible harmfulness of such devices. Only Supreme Court Justice Breyer’s dissent took systematic social science research seriously.
Children’s use of the media
We are concerned that young children are exposed by the electronic media to advertisements for potentially unhealthy foods and beverages, and also to numerous television programs and computer games that glorify violence. Children between the ages of 2 and 7 see an average of 13,904 television commercials per year, compared to 30,155 for 8 to 12 year-olds. A significant number of these advertisements are for food and may be linked to the increase of obesity. Children during one week spend about 3 hours or more on cell phones, 8 hours playing video games, and more than 10 hours on computers. These are new outlets for advertising of products and also include the use of websites. In employing “advergaming,” a company provides interactive games featuring their products on its website hoping that potential customers will be attracted to the game, spend more time playing on the website, or simply become more product aware. Unfortunately, most of the food commercials promote low nutrient and high caloric foods or what we label “junk food.” Research indicates that less than 1% of a sample of more than 500 food ads on children’s programs in 2009 featured nutritional products such as fruits, vegetables or wholegrain breads.
Children are also the targets of toy companies, especially during the fall season leading up to Christmas. Older children are vulnerable to the tobacco and alcohol advertising in print and on billboards. There are now commercials for beer and for some hard liquors on television, mainly during sports programs which are frequently watched by the over-8 year old groups.
The video game industry is an $18 billion dollar business in the United States. Despite the recession, one of the most violent games, Grand Theft Auto (GTA), continues to sell. Grand Theft Auto IV, a leader in the video game field, sold 3.6 million copies in just one day after its release. About 70 million copies of other Grand Theft Auto editions have sold worldwide since its debut in 1997. In 2010, GTA: San Andreas was the third best selling game of all time.
Research taking into account similar variables in a large number of studies, indicates that the heavy playing of violent video games results in aggression in children as well as leading to less empathy, caring, or civil behavior in non-game situations. Furthermore, new brain research shows that those who play violent video games show physical desensitization in the form of brain responses to violent imagery. These brain differences in violent video game players lead to a breakdown in the motivational system which normally inhibits aggression. In the laboratory, violent video game players who showed these brain responses also behaved more aggressively when provoked. Isn’t it time for our legal and legislative policy-makers to pay attention to social science research in the area of children and the media?
Bakan, J. (August 22, 2011). The kids are not all right. The New York Times, p. A19.
Singer, D.G. & Singer, J.L. (Eds). (2012). Handbook of Children and the Media. Second Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Inc.
Singer, D.G. (Summer, 2009). Play and the search for identity in the cyberspace community. Washington and Lee Law Review 66, 3 (1003-1031).