The Byron Review

This week, the Byron Review was published. TV’s Dr Tanya Byron was commissioned by Gordon Brown to write an independent report on the effects of Internet content and video game violence on kids and young people, amid concerns that violent games may be lowering children’s morals.

When Stefan Pakeerah, 14, was killed in February by a friend, his father Patrick Pakeerah claimed that the murder was inspired by the game computer game Manhunt. No such evidence was ever found.

The claim that ‘violent computer games = violent actions’, has been stated as fact for years so much so that the public believe it to be so, however, Byron’s well-balanced and well-informed report is particularly interesting. I’ve read the gaming section of the report, and simply put there is no credible evidence that computer games make adults violent.

Ultimately, the scope of research on the effects of computer games is extremely limited… The evidence for both negative and positive effects is limited and unreliable although, yet again, it should be emphasised that the fact that such effects have not been convincingly identified does not in itself mean that they do not occur.

Byron goes on to say, (and this is pleasing for anyone who has been labelled as a geek);

More broadly, and despite repeated claims, there is no especially convincing evidence that playing computer games results in reduced educational achievement, or that it undermines healthy social relationships or family life.

In her conclusion of the gaming section of the report, Byron made the extremely sensible point that just because computer games contain violent or ‘adult’ material, that doesn’t mean they should be banned.

there are some ‘high-risk’ individuals who take their cues from religious texts in order to justify catastrophically violent acts; but this is not in itself deemed to be a sufficient reason to ban or censor such texts.

The same argument is made for films with violent content, Casino Royale contained some particularly grizzly, realistic and reproducible torture sequences, and yet the British Board of Film Classification, (BBFC) gave it a 12A rating, meaning you could take a child under 12 in to see the movie, if you as a responsible parent believed they were mature enough.

In review Byron stated that there should be greater understanding in the minds of parents, about what games their kids are playing. Here we come to the crux of the argument. Games already have two rating systems, the BBFC and the Pan-European Game Information System, (PEGI). The PEGI system is actually more stringent in its rating system, and gives in-depth indication as to the content of the game than simply the BBFC age rating. Dr Byron is quoted in the Times Online as saying,

We have to make child digital safety a priority. If you are under 18, you should not be able to buy an ‘18’ game and if you are under 12, you should not be able to buy a ‘12’ game”
Dr Tanya Byron, Times Online

Fairly obvious really, yet this is the point: it makes no difference what rating you give a game, parents must actually take responsibility for what their children are playing. We have long known that just because a film is rated 18, or television programmes are scheduled after the 9pm watershed, children will still find ways of watching them. Just like anything else, children should not be allowed to buy, (or have bought for them), material intended for adults.