Violent Video Games Back in Court

The data is clear: Violence onscreen morphs into real-life violence. But will the Supreme Court strike down limits on violent video games?

A boy is pictured in a photo illustration playing a video game rated suitable for teens to play. The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Nov. 2 in a suit challenging a California law requiring labeling of violent content in video games.
A boy is pictured in a photo illustration playing a video game rated suitable for teens to play. The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Nov. 2 in a suit challenging a California law requiring labeling of violent content in video games. (photo: CNS photo/Lisa A. Johnston)

WASHINGTON (CNS) — The Supreme Court entered the world of virtual violence Nov. 2, when the justices heard oral arguments in a case involving a California law, enacted but never put into effect, that bans the sale of violent video games to minors.

The issues at hand include just how deleterious the effects of violence are on the underage targets of the manufacturers, and whether First Amendment freedom-of-speech rights trump the content of the violent message.

Darcia Narvaez, a professor at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., studies the effects of experience on moral development.

“A couple of years ago, my lab did several studies comparing violent versus helping game play,” Narvaez told Catholic News Service in a Nov. 3 e-mail. “We found that people who played the helping game were more pro-social afterwards in the task we gave them.”

Narvaez also discovered one unwanted side effect during her research: “Unfortunately, we found that everyone came in with elevated levels of aggression, suggesting that youth experience so much violence — in media or life — that they are more aggressive than in the past.”

Craig Anderson, a psychology professor and director of the Center for the Study of Violence at Iowa State University in Ames, has been conducting research into video games and behavior since the 1980s.

Anderson calls himself a “gamer,” someone who plays video games, dating back to text-based games in the 1970s when he was a university student. He even recalls having one of the early versions of Pong, the video ping-pong game that seems archaic today but was revolutionary 30 years ago in that players could get their television screen to show something other than broadcast TV.

“There are both short-term and long-term effects to playing violent video games,” Anderson told CNS in a Nov. 4 telephone interview. “In both cases, what we find is that exposure to violent video games increases the likelihood of later aggressive behavior, aggressive feelings, aggressive thinking. Such games also lead to a decrease in pro-social or helping behavior and a decrease in empathy — or what some people would call an increase in desensitization to scenes of violence and victims.”

The Supreme Court got the message Nov. 2 that the jury is out on the effects of prolonged exposure to violent video games. But “the ones who are claiming the evidence is mixed are ignoring the vast majority of studies that are out there,” Anderson told CNS. “I’ve been a gamer for many, many years, but that hasn’t blinded me to the fact that there can be harmful effects.”

But Donald W. Greenberg, an associate professor of politics at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Conn., said he believes the studies will not be enough to persuade the court to deny First Amendment rights.

“The only thing I think the legislature can do, and the only thing I think that works, is labeling,” Greenberg told CNS Nov. 4.

The justices would have to define, and score, a test on violence in the same manner as they would on obscenity. Greenberg recalled former Justice Potter Stewart’s quote on obscenity: “I know it when I see it.” “What’s actionable?” Greenberg asked aloud. “It’s still going to be a difficult thing to determine.”

While many hold the First Amendment sacrosanct, according to Greenberg, it is not absolute. One of the “classic” limitations on free speech is former Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’ test: “You cannot yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater.”

Obscenity, likewise, is not immune, Greenberg said. “Whatever it is, it’s not protected,” he added, noting, “the court has not done anything on this in 25 years.”

One other area where the First Amendment is not absolute is in the protection of minors. Even there, though, the high court has preferred a minimalist approach, Greenberg said, citing an Internet censorship case in which the court ruled “not that it was inherently wrong to do, but that parents had less intrusive means to make it work. You can put filters on, you can put caps on ... so there’s no need to go so draconian” as outright censorship.

The other First Amendment exception is commercial speech, which does not enjoy the same level of protection as “social” or political speech. Greenberg said he didn’t know if the state of California made a sufficiently strong argument Nov. 2 that the commercial speech involved in violent video games warranted government action. “You can regulate speech or proscribe speech when it presents a clear and present danger to the public,” he said. “The danger has to be clear — very, very obvious — and very immediate.”

“Violent media should be considered as unhealthy as cigarettes are for kids, so sales should be carefully monitored,” declared Notre Dame’s Narvaez. “Funny how the U.S.A. is so nonchalant about violence when the empirical evidence shows it (is) overwhelmingly harmful in the short and long term.”

“U.S. society is toxic for children these days wherever you look: food, consumer products, air, water, soil, media,” Narvaez added. “It’s really unfair to put policing all these things onto parents. Plus parents don’t have the information they need on all these things. Society needs to step in and make things safe for kids, like banning BPA plastics or monitoring violent video game sales.”