Archive Index: November 2006
Archive: November 2006
Parents Need to Help Kids Choose Good Games
The National Institute on Media and the Family released its 11th Annual MediaWise Video Game Report Card yesterday. The findings?: "While improvements have been made by the video game industry and retailers, parental involvement received an 'Incomplete' as surveys showed too few parents following the ESRB's ratings and parental controls on gaming consoles."
On the survey, more than half the kids (third through fifth graders) reported that their parents never talk to them about the games they play, and a quarter of them said that their parents never bother to weigh in on what games they should play or rent.
What Parents Need to Know About What Kids Are Asking For This Holiday Season
High-tech, high-dollar gadgets are topping kids’ holiday wish lists this season -- a trend that has plenty of parents in a dilemma. Which are the right gadgets to get, what’s worth the money, and what is age appropriate?
Cyberbullying Can Happen To Teachers, Too
Here's a new twist on cyberbullying: Canadian students provoked a teacher and then recorded him losing his temper. They posted the video on YouTube (it was removed later at the request of the school board). From The New York Times article:
"Two students who attend the equivalent of Grade 9 at a school in Gatineau, Quebec, a city across the river from Ottawa, were sent home last week after officials learned that they had posted a videotape of a teacher losing his temper on YouTube. The episode was not spontaneous. A girl, who has not been identified, provoked the teacher while a boy secretly taped the encounter with a compact video camera.
Community Revved Up Over Grand Theft Auto Ads
STORY UPDATE (Nov. 28): The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MTBA) has agreed to stop advertising explicitly violent video games on its trains and buses.
Get those Grand Theft Auto ads off our buses now! That's the message Boston's elected officials, community leaders, and public health advocates imparted in a letter to the MBTA last week.
In the letter -- organized by the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood -- concerned community members complained that the ads for the M-rated game reached both children riding the bus, and those who lived in neighborhoods that the buses went through.
Avoid Violent Games This Shopping Season
Leland Yee, a child psychologist, vocal video game critic -- and a California Senator-elect -- warned parents and other caregivers about the dangers of buying violent video games for their kids this holiday season.
“Eighty-seven percent of children between 8-17 years of age play video or computer games and about 60 percent list their favorite games as rated M for Mature, which are games designed for adults,” Yee said in a statement released yesterday.
