“Exposure to violent electronic media has a larger effect than all but one other well-known threat to public health. The only effect slightly larger than the effect of media violence on aggression is that of cigarette smoking on lung cancer. Our lives are saturated by the mass media, and for better or worse, violent media are having a particularly detrimental effect on the well-being of children. Children are also spending an increasingly large amount of time playing videogames, most of which contain violence. Videogame units are now present in 83 percent of homes with children. As with many other public health threats, not every child who is exposed to this threat will acquire the affliction of violent behavior. But that does not diminish the need to address the threat — as a society and as parents by trying to control children’s exposure to violent media to the extent that we can.” – psychology professor and researcher L. Rowell Huesmann (University of Michigan)

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