My kids are 10 and 12, I let them play any computer game they like, they both have at least 4 years experience of Unreal Tournament and are amazingly adept and have good co-ordination, and whats more, they know the difference between right and wrong, and they know its just a game as is GTA.

In my experience, parents who lock their kids away from reality, stop them using a computer and limit their exposure to the real world churn out kids that are unbalanced, nieve and too trusting. Those same kids will then gorge themselves on all the things their parents "shielded" them from and denied them access to the moment they are old enough, and those kids will be the bad ones.

The real world isn't all fluffy dogs, flowers and nice policemen, its corrupt, stinking, violent and dangerous. the kids best able to deal with it will be the ones who aren't suprised to learn that Bambi and snow white aren't real and actually has less basis in reality than GTA IV.

Would I let my kids play GTA IV? I think I would be deceiving them by not letting them play it, and its better they play a game rather than watch it on TV.

Would I let my kids watch violent horror movies or TV programs? No, because it might keep them awake at night and TV action is different to a computer program regardless of how good the graphics are.

Would I let my kids read the Bible? Not unsupervised because it really is full of brainwashing mindwarping stuff that is far more physchologically damaging than GTA IV... at least GTA IV has a basis in reality an fact.

If you think GTA4 or Manhunt or any FPS are bad, just read that festering pile 'the bible'.

What we get there:
murder
incest
rape (lots and lots of rape)
prostitution
hypocrisy
more incest
sexual abuse
genocide
another genocide
more genocide
torture
another couple of murders
mass murder
genocide

and people FORCE their children to read that. Compared with the bible splatter movies are harmless entertainment.

@ intrested_party,

You should checkout saints row 2, it's far worse :)

If you really want to keep 'young' kids from playing 'bad' games just get them a wii console though, I got one for my parents (strange I know) and there is very few M15+ games and above. I don't think there is a game quite like GTA that is anywhere near under M15+ though.

About the article itself though, 2 hours a day? yeah.. it takes that long for your average 12 year old to go through all his school friends e-mails each day and chat on msn/icq/skype etc. Let alone gaming + watching movies/tv episodes or humor sites.

in which a fundamentalist Utahian offshoot clothes-on-when-having-incestuous-sex extended family may curtail their Harry-Potter-Like-Wizard broods, uh, some, everywhere, like, and such as, so we will be able to build up our future, for our so forth, as you do.

I work at a company of over 100,000 employees and know of no other parent that I work with that is this over the top about media influence. In fact, I think if you are this worried about things (in general) that there is in fact something wrong with you and that you may also be a potential heart attack patient in the near future.

I have a 5 year old and a 15 year old myself and I think they do a pretty god job on thier own policing themselves. I pay attention to what they watch/play and none of it alarms me. The few times my son has seem me play/watch something violent I always ensure that he is aware that games/movies are fantasy and none of it is real. He is in fact more alarmed about things on the news than any fictional movie/game. He has said so himself to me.

For years gamers have been asking parents to properly vet their childrens game habits, asking why they are playing GTA at 12 when its clearly an 18 and when a site pops up trying to inform the clueless parents, this is a bad thing?

I know of one who thinks its a great game, and it is, but I don't think it's ok for a 7 year old to play it. Prostitutes, drug dealers and whacking people are something that a child of 7 shouldn't be playing games with, in my opinion.

Do I think he will go out and get himself a crack whore, steal a car and get it painted a different colour, beat some people up on the street with a baseball bat and shoot the police? No, but I'm still not comfortable with him playing that game. I wish there was a PG/12 rated version of GTA. What do you think?

(c) 2009 Microsoft ...

:-))