
My Four-Year-Old Son Plays Grand Theft Auto - kingsley_20
http://www.bitmob.com/articles/my-four-year-old-son-plays-grand-theft-auto
======
jcl
As a side note, I was really disappointed that Rockstar omitted the ambulance
and firefighter missions in GTA IV. The ambulance missions were one of my
favorite parts of the pre-GTA4 games -- challenging and well-rewarded.

(Edit: ...and, as the article shows, these missions are some of the only
pieces of the game that could be played entirely ethically -- which may be why
they were removed. I'm surprised no one's created a similar driving-and-
saving-lives sandbox game outside of GTA, although the taxi minigame is
similar to Crazy Taxi, which may be where GTA got the idea in the first
place.)

~~~
dantheman
GTA is quite an old franchise, GTA 1 & 2 were both top down games. You could
drive a taxi/bus and pick up people. The game was really quite fun.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_2>

Free download from rock* <http://www.rockstargames.com/classics/>

~~~
GFischer
Thanks for the link, didn't know they were downloadable for free! (huge props
to Rockstar).

I loved GTA2, never played 3 and beyond because I was always behind the tech
curve for the moment (and fairly busy with studies).

------
miguelpais
Much is said about protecting children from video games, but what about other
mediums (mainly TV, given its exposure)?

Any station can air some movie at 4pm featuring the good cops shooting the bad
guys. Or, for instance, it is easy to be watching some news report at dinner
and being exposed to something beating the horror or gore movies by points.

Aren't kids exposed since birth to the notion that violence becomes acceptable
if against the bad guys? Where goes the moral of don't to others what you
don't want to be done to you?

Even some very successful animated movies like Lion King end up with the bad
guy being killed. Either intentionally or not, kids end up satisfied that the
bad guy had what he deserved and that all become happily ever after.

I'm not for one side or the other, I just wanted to raise some questions to
see what you guys think. I don't think video games are bad for children, but I
agree they have to be picked appropriately for their age. But I also think we
end up avoiding violence in the obvious places but letting kids completely
exposed to it in another ones.

~~~
po
I'm not really sure where I stand on this issue but I think the argument is
along the lines of: watching violence is different than role-playing violence.

~~~
patio11
Right. In addition, we attempt to socialize young men that violence is
supposed to be a technique of last resort and permitted in only a narrow range
of situations. (This will not endear me to some teachers of mine, but I'll say
it anyhow: in those situations, it is often morally praiseworthy.)

Grand Theft Auto and company, on the other hand, depict violence as _riotously
good fun_ which is self-justifying and an appropriate response to, e.g.,
boredom.

~~~
eru
Yes. You should be playing Deus Ex instead. You have a choice there.

------
WalterGR
I found this article incredibly disturbing.

 _Instead of plowing into the rear of the car ahead of him, he swerved to the
right and popped up onto to sidewalk. In doing so, he accidently ran over a
woman walking towards his oncoming car. He was incredibly ashamed of himself
and profusely apologized._

I was an extremely sensitive young boy. This would have been _deeply_
affecting to me at the time.

 _“It's okay. It's only a game. It's not real”, I reassured him. After a few
minutes of me explaining the difference between a game and real life, he felt
comfortable enough to continue playing._

Dear god.

I really hope the scene played out like:

\- Child was disturbed

\- Father was reassuring

\- Child continued playing _entirely of his own volition_

And not like:

\- Child was disturbed

\- Father was reassuring and encouraged child to continue playing, because
it's okay to kill people in a game

\- Child continued playing

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I understand you completely. I was chilled when I read "Its okay. It's only a
game." Its true of course, but probably beyond a child's reasoning. Imagine
"Its only baseball, cheat all you want". But here, its running over people.

------
moxiemk1
This speaks to why people are afraid of Grand Theft Auto: it isn't
intrinsically bad; it can sometimes, however, speak a lot about people playing
it.

Even more so, though, it also speaks a lot that about our society that it
places a lot of value on decisions people make _in a game_.

~~~
ebtalley
and its a lot easier to express criminal behavior within the game without any
repercussion, coupling that with a young mind that hasn't grown the mental
aptitude to distinguish could lead to some ugly mishap's. We have a separate
child's court for all of the above reasons.

------
Jun8
What the ... This is truly unbelievable. If the kid wants to drive cars, there
are tons of games available (my three year old loves one such game on iPad).
And you can't argue that it isn't "intrinsically bad" either, a lot of stuff
that is OK for grownups (alcohol, nudity, coke) may be bad for kids and may
cause permanent psychological damage. Do you want to risk it?

~~~
jcl
Granted, drugs can hurt kids, but I'd be surprised to find that nudity has
ever been shown to cause permanent psychological damage; otherwise we'd never
have made it out of the trees. Do you have any references supporting that
view?

~~~
tptacek
My understanding --- which I can't in any way back up --- is that exposure to
nudity was pretty much the norm for most of human history, in that families
lived together in single rooms.

It's the (accidentally or otherwise) killing people part that bothers me about
this.

I've studiously avoided exposing my (now 10.5 and 8.5 year old) kids to sexual
material because it's unpleasant for _me_ to have to deal with the questions
(though the boy's pretty much already gotten the details formally now).

But violence still bothers me.

~~~
ahlatimer
I find it odd that sexuality and nudity are considered to be the worst things
you can expose to a child. Violence, up to a point, is tolerated, but any
display of sexuality is seen as adults only. Speaking directly of GTA, yes,
there was some outcry over the violence contained, but the hot coffee mod
received far more attention.

I've met a fair number of people who've had sex, and have had it myself, and I
can't say that many have been seriously emotionally damaged because of it [1].
I've also met a few people that have taken the lives of others [2]. The damage
done to someone by them killing someone else is miles away from the damage
done to someone by having sex (if there even is any).

[1]: Excluding a few people I've met who have been raped. [2]: I used to work
for the military.

------
yread
I always thought it was kind of obvious that the rating for the games meant
without adult supervision. When you sit behind your kid and take care of him
and stress the difference between real life and game (and do not let him play
for 20 hours straight) then almost any game would be ok.

~~~
frossie
_When you sit behind your kid and take care of him [...] then almost any game
would be ok_

I agree about your larger point (there is a huge difference between supervised
and unsupervised play), but no, almost any game would not be okay for a four
year old. Four is a pretty critical age - kids start grasping the concept of
death for example - and really, there are a lot of games that are
developmentally completely inappropriate for this age.

The sad thing is that it came down to "my kid liked driving the car". If there
is one thing the gaming world isn't short of, it's kid-appropriate driving
games.

Kids grow up so fast - why rush it? Let them play the kiddie games now, there
will be lots of time for GTA later.

~~~
Splines
> If there is one thing the gaming world isn't short of, it's kid-appropriate
> driving games.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find a current gen sandbox driving game that
is suitable for children. I think the only one I can think of off-hand would
be Test Drive: Unlimited (which is a great game, btw, and probably more
suitable for the child in this article).

There's probably more Need For Speed games or Mario Kart clones that I can
think of, but very few driving games that are not focused on winning a race.

Thinking back a few years, the Crazy Taxi-type games are also good for
children, although a good representation from the genre hasn't really been
seen.

~~~
GFischer
I remember the "Stunts!" game which let you customize your tracks... it was
huge fun when I was a child.

Here it is on Wikipedia:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stunts_%28video_game%29>

~~~
mattmichielsen
Awesome. It was actually called "4D" on my old 386, and I haven't thought
about that game in years. I spent countless hours building tracks and driving
on them when I was 11 or 12 years old.

------
ericd
How is this Hacker News? This belongs on Reddit.

~~~
tptacek
I won't cry if this gets flagged but I like any HN discussion that touches on
parenthood, because it's another experience besides coding and
entrepreneurship that I might share with people here.

~~~
shrikant
..and provides for a classic hackers' sparring session: hands-on experience in
one corner vs. those who've read all about it in the other.

------
minouye
So when he turns 8 and starts wasting innocent bystanders for fun, do you take
the game away?

~~~
chrischen
I thought the point of the article was that the kid _didn't_ waste innocent
bystanders. In fact, he apologized for it when he accidentally did it. I'm
sure if he keeps playing it one day he'll do the missions and be exposed to
the bad stuff, but by then I'm sure he'd be able to distinguish between game
and real life.

~~~
mkramlich
He didn't waste innocent bystanders during the particular play session(s) the
blog post was documenting. True.

But that's irrelevant and distinct from the notion of whether he will be more
likely to do it at some future point in life, or do other related actions
which result from a lack of empathy for other human beings, or a lack of
understanding of negative consequences, or the permanance of harm in the real
world.

I hear a lot of black-vs-white arguments in debates around this issue, but the
problem is that it's not about black or white states or actions. Yes, having a
4 year old play GTA will not instantly turn him into a monster. And a kid can
become a monster without ever playing GTA. Neither of those data points
disproves a range of other possible negative effects that have shades of gray
impact in the real world.

~~~
chrischen
> _He didn't avoid these things because I told him he counldn't try them. It
> just never occurred to him to commit these acts._

Does the game cause kids to go bad or is the game simply a litmus test for
evil? The little baby kid didn't waste bystanders because the game doesn't
tell you to do that. Perhaps your first instinct is to kill innocent
bystanders when you think of sandbox style worlds... but for this kid
apparently it's not. Even if it was, the game wouldn't be at fault. I'm pretty
sure even if he did the missions, and understood the dialogue, he wouldn't be
made to do such things because the missions don't usually have you kill
innocent people.

------
kingsley_20
I posted this here because I think the actual actions of the child, against
overwhelming odds, are probably a more credible indicator of its future than
any images of filth he may have encountered. If you believe that playing this
game and seeing hookers and blow will turn you into a delinquent, then what
this kid did should turn him into IronMan.

------
mbubb
I think about this all the time. 2 boys 3 and 6 yrs old. I cringed a bit when
I saw the title because it made me think of the term 'alterna-dad' and of a
style of parenting in which children become accessories and 'buddies' to their
extended adolescent parents. Sport matching mohawks, etc, etc.

But the article was nothing like that. It is short but the feeling I got was
of true exploration and of forging a real relationship. (Another HN post of
the past few days talked about how you have +/- 10 yrs to connect with yr
kid). It also reminded me (as other posters noted) of that SouthPark where
they all play WOW and meet Randy in game. Or the classic 'Chinpokemon'. Two
really well done episodes - in both cases parents wade through unfamiliar
territory to meet their kids and understand them better. Not simply ban the
game.

There is danger in letting your chidren do certain things. The impulse to
bubblewrap them is strong. I catch my breath everytime they do things like
walk with me out on our balcony (17th floor), ride the scooter in the
skatepark, climb on the rocks in the park across from our apartment, etc. But
I consciously hold myself back - watching them but not rushing in to stop
them. This week end my 3 yr old got punched full in the face by a 5 yr old. I
held back for a count of 10 to let him deal with it as he wanted to and then
comforted him a bit and broght him back so he could feel safe playing around
this kid.

The point is to show them experientially that you trust them - and that you
are in the background to help them if things get scary. I felt that vibe from
this writer and applaud that.

In truth I have no idea of what I am doing. I use my intuition as a guide and
hope I am right. What he says about the ESRB is spot on. If - as a parent -
you need a school, govt agency or rating agency to tell you what is safe for
your kid - then you are screwed. You need to go through it with your child and
see for yourself.

You can get good advice from individuals - teachers, other parents, certain
writers - but not from agencies and bureacracies.

As a parent dealing with impact of media in general is a challenge. For the
past 2 yrs we went off cable tv and started to rely completely on the
internet/ public library/ netflix for movies etc. I have held off on getting
Wii/ x-box, etc in favor of PC based games. They have both watched tons of
anime and comics (particularly stuff like Miyazaki Hayako (sp?) and the Avatar
series). They both love Futurama - which might be too adult at times for them.
I will have to explain 'death by snoo-snoo' one of these days.

My older son has learned to really enjoy some of the games that an Ubuntu
distribution has to offer - things like Wormux, OpenSonic, BattleTanks. He has
looked over my sholder as I have played some of the Doom emulations on the
android or the Quake-like games on Ubuntu.

From hacker news I found out about the Wolfire free bundle and he fell in love
with the Samorost series. He cried when it was done and drew a big picture of
what he thought the next episode should be.

More recently on my wife's computer (WinXP) I downloaded Steam and setup the
free version of Portal and bought a Tower Defense game to play.

Every time we take the subway or wait somewhere my wife and/or I whip out the
gPhone and let the two of them play android games.

We try to limit this to certain times of the week etc. because of the vague
fear that media will completely saturate their lives.

It is not the violence alone that gives me pause. I knwo experientially how
absorbing a good game is (thinking of days past playing Half-Life or Diablo,
etc).

I want them both to enjoy good media and I am loosely overlapping anime,
movies and games because I feel like there is power in the imagery of
soemthing like Half-Life or Miyazaki's "Princess Mononoke" which affects you
deeply.

What often pisses me off are crappy movies in which the point is simply to
sell a lifestyle. I hate movies like "Shark Tales" or "Madagascar" and I cant
say exactly why. There are funny bit parts but the whole thing feels like it
is in the service of what the philosopher Adorno referred to as the "Culture
Industry". I find those movies more disturbing than somethign with more overt
violence.

In a very interesting way I think this goes back to Plato and his fear of
'poetry' by which he included dramatic arts. It was the fear of the power of
images. We have reached the point where video games and anime have reached a
complexity and depth of imagery that they have a life of their own.

I know myself that these things affect me differently. I am trying to see
through my sons' eyes to see how they are affected. At times it feels
dangerous - like letting them speed ahead on their little bikes on the city
sidewalk - but what this guy is doing is right. Watch them in the background,
ready to bolt after them - let them know that you trust them and that you are
there to help deal with the scary parts - let them experience it and learn
from them as they reflect their experience back to you.

Plato on images: <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-rhetoric/>

Culture Industry: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_industry>

~~~
e40
Parent of a 9yr old boy here.

> In truth I have no idea of what I am doing. I use my intuition as a guide
> and hope I am right.

The problem is, for most people, intuition doesn't do very well in raising
kids. Experience does. That's what bugs me about humans in our current stage
of development. Each generation learns things and most of it is not passed on
to the next generation. Every single one of my peers got squat from their
parents in terms of "this is how it works, pay attention".

I definitely feel like I know a LOT more now, and much of my intuition was
wrong.

I will say that I have a tendency to want my child to grow up too fast. The
other day I was eyeing Blade Runner on the shelf and kept asking myself if he
was old enough. It's rated R and there's a lot of violence. My son doesn't
like violence yet, so that made it a little easier. (This wasn't an intuitive
issue, it was about my desire. My intuition was to not let him.)

Overprotection is a real problem with today's kids. I see it everywhere I
look, even in my own house. My spouse's intuition is to over-protect. It's
nearly impossible to fight against that.

~~~
mbubb
Well said: ...Each generation learns things and most of it is not passed on to
the next generation. Every single one of my peers got squat from their parents
in terms of "this is how it works, pay attention".

Blade Runner is an excellent choice for this discussion. A really good movie,
something that remains with you long after. In terms of scary violence - that
early tense scene where the android is being tested might be over the top -
but the rest is just Star-Warsy gun battles where no one gets their head blown
off...

Is it really that much more violent than prime time TV?

Lots of murky,scary suspenseful scenes.

I guess the counter argument is always - 'there will be time to watch this in
the future'. But it is an individual decision not one for the esrb. Depends on
the kid, I think.

On overprotection. I ran across a reference within the last year to 'free-
range parenting'. Didnt read the book but got a good chuckle out of the amazon
review and the idea in general.

I live in a NJ city about 1 mile west of the Empire State Bldg. So I am in the
crucible of NYC-metro competitiveness which insinuates itself into everyday
life. Kids taking 2 or 3 different language classes, multiple sports, music -
all before they are 4 yrs old.

And insane over-protectiveness at times. A neighbor with 2 boys 9 and 7 yrs
old, lets them walk 6 blocks to school. Which I somewhat agree with. Not sure
I will be able to do that at the time but it has made me think about this
issue in general.

The biggest problem with over-protectiveness in general is that I think kids
absorb the fact that you dont trust them. In fact you are thinking of the
murderers and molesters and drunk drivers but the kid thinks you dont trust
him/her.

The movie/ novel "The Road" deals with this on an extreme level

I think this will inevitably happen in adolescence - some kind of "I'm old
enough" / "No you're not" discussion. Seems like it is better to develop alot
of trust before that happens.

~~~
eru
> And insane over-protectiveness at times. A neighbor with 2 boys 9 and 7 yrs
> old, lets them walk 6 blocks to school. Which I somewhat agree with. Not
> sure I will be able to do that at the time but it has made me think about
> this issue in general.

Indeed. We've come a long way, when letting your kids walk to school is
something out of the ordinary.

------
singlow
Does everyone here believe this guy? The guy spins a good tale, but I
seriously doubt this happened. It is at the best an elaboration.

------
sliverstorm
To those of you who are all for this kid playing GTA-

Would you feel differently if this was Manhunt 2? Or would that be totally
cool as well.

------
sigzero
I think he is an idiot. What a way to ruin a child.

------
mkramlich
I think the author is dangerously naive because young children, much more so
than adults, have a hard time distinguishing between the real world and one's
imagination. For them, the border is much more fluid and harder to see.

And it's not like we're talking about a 14 year old playing D&D here with
heroes and castles and dragons, oh my, but rather a 4 year old with cops,
hookers, pimps, drugs, car chases, mugging and vandalism.

~~~
xenophanes
How do you know you aren't just a child with an overactive imagination who
think's he's an adult? Since you say a child couldn't reliably tell the
difference...

It's really dehumanizing to take a very large group of people and basically
say they are incapable of decent thought like you and need to be controlled.

[edit: added the word "reliably"]

~~~
rjett
Joking? I'll bite anyways...

There has been myriad research detailing the adverse effects of children (aka
developing humans) viewing violence, sex, drugs, etc. I think four year-olds
safely qualify as developing. If stuff like this isn't alarming enough,
consider a more extreme example like the two year old in Indonesia who smokes
a couple packs of cigarettes per day
[http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/05/31/indonesia.smokin...](http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/05/31/indonesia.smoking.baby/index.html)
. You're hurting these kids' chances (of living a healthy life/of relating to
their peers/of being successful/ etc)

For those hounding me for citations, here's something I quickly rustled up:

From an economist: <http://www.scribd.com/doc/22743802/Learning-Violence-
Young>

From a social psychologist: <http://www.scribd.com/doc/2038214/Video-Game-
Violence>

From a the Institution of Youth Development in Washington DC:
<http://www.scribd.com/doc/33292276/Violence>

~~~
xenophanes
I don't think it's fair to compare playing a video game in which one does bad
things with _actually smoking in real life_.

As to the studies, I've read some such studies and deemed them invalid or
unscientific. Can you cite one that you would stand behind as rigorous and
accurate?

[Edit: Can you site ONE study that you will STAND BEHIND? One you've read in
full. Not three studies you just googled. I can google studies too...]

~~~
tptacek
You are on very shaky ground with this line of argument, which attempts to
cast aspersions at basically all of psychology because of controversies
unrelated to the the issue we're actually talking about.

Yes, there are questions about whether playing "Mature"-themed games actually
causes problems _for teenagers_.

Yes, there is an effort, probably ill-conceived, to restrict access to
"Mature"-themed games _for teenagers_.

We are not talking about teenagers; we're talking about a 4 year old.

One simple axis of argument to observe here is the Harvard (Kutner & Olson)
vs. Iowa (Anderson) debate; Kutner's book points out that much of the psych
research is methodologically flawed. But _both_ Kutner _and_ Anderson agree
that exposure to very violent games is associated with increased aggression.
Kutner just doesn't want to see all games demonized for all pre-adult age
groups.

~~~
xenophanes
You've used the weasel words "associated with" which are common in psych
studies.

One thing "associated with" does NOT mean is "caused by". It's consistent
with, say, people first becoming aggressive and then taking up violent games
afterwards. And it's consistent with taking their violent games away from them
making them more, not less, aggressive.

Anyway, just because two people from a debate agree doesn't make something
true. And just because psychological studies are flawed for irrelevant reasons
doesn't mean they aren't also flawed for relevant reasons. Feel free to cite a
study you'd like to stand behind...

~~~
tptacek
Something's gone pear shaped in this discussion if I have to weasel my way
through it. Sorry. I'd just like to point out again that it's not like we're
arguing about anthropogenical global warming here. Developmental psychology,
along with (I hope) common sense, suggests very strongly that 4 years olds are
not 14 year olds.

I've cited researchers (both with litanies of studies) downthread.

~~~
CamperBob
_Developmental psychology, along with (I hope) common sense, suggests very
strongly that 4 years olds are not 14 year olds._

Which cleverly dodges the question at hand. Cartoon violence and/or sex:
harmful to kids or not?

The big problem with most of the psych studies indicating "harm," for some
definition of harm, is in the controls. Typically they'll sit some kids down
in front of an Xbox for a measured period of time, and monitor them for signs
of aggression and aberrations in empathy. The control group consists of
another group of kids sitting in the next room playing with crossword puzzles.

The control groups in these studies _should_ consist of kids running around
outdoors playing Cowboys and Indians, but that never, _ever_ seems to occur to
the psych majors. It's almost as if they initiated their studies to
demonstrate a preordained conclusion, or something.

------
CamperBob
I'd sure like to see some peer-reviewed scientific literature, where the peers
in question aren't all members of evangelical Christian pressure groups, that
documents the 'harm' done to young children by media.

If children are that easily traumatized, how can _any_ child grow up to become
a healthy adult in a real war zone?

~~~
tptacek
See upthread. The Department of Psychology at Iowa State and Harvard Medical
School Center for Mental Health aren't evangelical Christian pressure groups.
Let's not bring culture war into this.

Oh, the answer to your second question might be _sometimes they can't._

