‘Kids don’t need protection, we need guidance.” That quote from an unnamed British child appears in Safer Children in a Digital World: The Report of the Byron Review. The review, initiated by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in September and conducted by clinical psychologist Tanya Byron, was released late last week in Britain and was front-page news there. Child safety, the Internet, video games - these are hot topics.

However, the report has been largely ignored in Canada. I spent several days this week calling federal and provincial officials, looking for someone who had at least heard of the thing and could comment on its relevance here, and it did not bear much fruit. Still, after reading the report’s 226 pages, I think one thing is clear: A lot more people in Canada, parents especially, should read it too.

Dr. Byron was asked to analyze the risks and benefits presented by new technologies, specifically the Internet and video games, and their impact on childhood brain development. Her task was to look at what was already being done in Britain to safeguard kids from online predators and material meant for adults, whether in games or on websites, and then make recommendations for improvements.

In terms of video games, the report does all this masterfully. It is a beacon of common sense in what can be a polarized debate.

On the violence front, for example, there is a school of thought, based on research conducted almost exclusively in the United States, that games desensitize players to violence and actively lead them astray. (Last week, one British tabloid offered hundreds of pounds to anyone who would publicly trace their criminal behaviour back to video games; there have been no takers yet.) At the opposite end of the spectrum are proponents of the “catharsis effect,” the idea that exposure to violent content can purge players of their violent compulsions.

Dr. Byron parsed the existing research into those theories, and found almost all of it wanting. Throughout the video-game sections and the rest of the report, she urges people to “take into account children’s individual strengths and vulnerabilities, because the factors that can discriminate a ‘beneficial’ from a ‘harmful’ experience online and in video games will often be individual factors in the child.”

The review calls for a comprehensive marketing and education program, paid for by industry and government, to better prepare parents and children for their increasingly digital lives.

Her findings also set out three main areas of concern related to games and young minds: 1) Games can take up too much time and get in the way of other activities; 2) online games carry with them the risk of exposure to potentially harmful outsiders, in the same way the Internet does; and 3) young people often gain access to games meant for an older audience.

Regarding that last issue, Dr. Byron recommended that parents be made more aware of parental controls that can filter content for individual players on game consoles and computers. The review also calls for the British video-game rating system to be overhauled so that film classifications, with which parents are familiar, appear on the front of game packaging. It will be a big switch for the British review board, but it would be even more onerous here: Canada has seven provincial agencies charged with classifying movies, and all video games are currently rated by the U.S.-based Entertainment Software Rating Board.

Of course, since the Conservatives seem to be guided by the philosophy that government is useless, I don’t expect meaningful action on Internet and gaming issues any time soon.

That shouldn’t stop parents and others, however, from cherry-picking from this impressive, balanced piece of work. The full report, an executive summary and a special section for kids can be found at http://www.dfes.gov.uk/byronreview.

Source: Globe and Mail, Canada
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