Shacknews Document

SWOP-USA Statement Regarding the Video Game Grand Theft Auto created by Take-Two Interactive.

Although SWOP-USA will always be adamantly opposed to any and all forms of censorship, as concerned parents ourselves, we wish to inform other parents of the potential danger extremely violent video games pose to children. And in the interest of furthering sex worker’s human and civil rights to life and personal safety, we object to any media which represents sex workers as legitimate targets of violence, rape and murder. Censorship is a blight on the freedoms we hold dear but we wholeheartedly encourage citizens to vote with their dollars by refusing to purchase products which encourage the denigration and destruction of prostitutes. Since the video game Grand Theft Auto accrues points to players for the depiction of the rape and murder of prostitutes, SWOP-USA calls on all parents and all gamers to boycott Grand Theft Auto.

Concerned parents and citizens are encouraged to read pertinent research regarding child development and interactive representations of violence. For your convenience, research results as reported by David Walsh, Ph.D. for the National Institute on Media and the Family in 2001 are summarized below:

“Prominent organizations like the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Medical Association have all concluded that the scientific evidence shows a cause-effect relationship between television violence and aggression among the children and youth who watch it. Based on this research, many social scientists have hypothesized that we should expect video games to have an even greater impact for the following four reasons.

“1. Children are more likely to imitate the actions of a character with whom they identify. In violent video games the player is often required to take the point of view of the shooter or perpetrator.

“2. Video games by their very nature require active participation rather than passive observation.

“3. Repetition increases learning. Video games involve a great deal of repetition. If the games are violent, then the effect is a behavioral rehearsal for violent activity.

“4. Rewards increase learning, and video games are based on a reward system.

“ . . . [Research is] showing that the concern is indeed warranted. . .

“Children with the lowest hostility scores are almost 10 times more likely to have been involved in physical fights if they play a lot of violent video games than if they do not play violent games (38% compared to 4%). In fact, the least hostile children who play a lot of violent video games are more likely to be involved in fights than are the most hostile children who do not play violent video games.

“ . . . [There is] a strong correlation between exposure to violent video games and various forms of antisocial behavior.”

From Video Game Violence and Public Policy
by David Walsh, Ph.D.
for the National Institute on Media and the Family,
copyright 2001

Available online: http://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/conf2001/papers/walsh.html

Statement taken from http://www.swop-usa.org/