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Bishop warns on video violence
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Printable version |
| By Damir Govorcin
2 March, 2008 |
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| Bishop Porteous |
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DESENSITISATION to violence or sexual imagery does not promote the dignity of the human person and, as such, is not in our best interests as individuals nor as a society, says Bishop Julian Porteous, auxiliary Bishop of Sydney.
“The causes of violence and crime in society is a very complex problem,” he said.
“We need not add to this problem with games that numb our natural repulsion to violence and, with regard to sexually explicit games, reduce women in particular to mere objects of instant self gratification.”
The most violent video games on the market could soon be sold in Australia after the Federal Government said it was considering updating the classification system for games to include an R18+ rating.
Unlike films, magazines and other publications, there is no adult classification for games in Australia, so any titles that do not meet the MA15+ standard – such as those with excessive violence or sexual content – are simply banned from sale by the Classification Board.
Any changes to the censorship regime must be agreed to by the Commonwealth and all state and territory attorneys-general.
A spokeswoman for the Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus confirmed that the issue of whether to allow an R18+ classification for games would be discussed by censorship ministers at the next Standing Committee of Attorneys-General ) meeting on March 28.
It will be the first time the issue has been discussed since November 2005.
Bishop Porteous said: “We know from psychological research that exposure to violent video games can desensitise people to real-life violence.
For instance, The Effects of Video Game Violence on Physiological Desensitisation to Real-Life Violence, by Iowa State University psychologist Nicholas Carnagey, and Professors Craig Anderson and Brad Bushman, shows “that exposure to violent video games increases aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, physiological arousal and aggressive behaviours, and decreases helpful behaviours” (Science Daily, 27 July 2006).
“Furthermore,” the bishop said, a University of California study on the Effects of Media Violence on Health-Related Outcomes Among Young Men by Dr Sonya Brady, reveals that violent video games create more permissive attitudes towards risky behaviours, such as drug use, in young people who play such games.
“Dr Brady’s study not only reconfirms associations between real-world violence and risky behaviour, her experiments show a direct cause and effect between exposure to violence and attitudes toward risky behaviour .Video game violence can change a person’s attitudes in the real world (UCSF Today, September 2006).
The bishop said “there is a risk that exposure to media violence will increase the likelihood of subsequent aggressive behaviour; video games with explicit sexual content are also at issue here.”
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