Children and Video Games: How Much Do We Know?
Psychiatric Times October 01, 2007 Vol. 24 No. 12 Cheryl K. Olson, ScD, Lawrence Kutner, PhD, and Eugene V. Beresin, MD Dr Olson and Dr Kutner teach in the department of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School, Boston, and are codirectors at the Center for Mental Health and Media. Dr Beresin is professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Residency Training Program at MGH and McLean Hospital and Medical Director of the MGH Child Psychiatry Outpatient Clinic in Boston. The authors report no conflicts of interest concerning the subject matter of this article. There is no shortage of hyperbole when politicians of all stripes describe the nature and effects of video games. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney proclaimed, "Pornography and violence poison our music and movies and TV and video games. The Virginia Tech shooter, like the Columbine shooters before him, had drunk from this