AMA meeting: AMA concerned about video games' impact on youth

Delegates call for a review of the rating system but stop short of calling overuse an addiction.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, AMNews staff. July 16, 2007.

Chicago -- The video game rating system needs to be improved to allow parents to know why games receive the ratings they do and to lead to informed decision-making about which ones their children will be permitted to use, according to a report from the AMA's Council on Science and Public Health. These recommendations were adopted as policy at last month's Annual Meeting.

"We would like to see a ratings system that better alerts parents to the content of the video game and recommended age of the player, so they can decide whether or not their child should be playing it," said AMA President Ronald M. Davis, MD.

About 70% to 90% of those younger than 18 play video games. In response to studies suggesting that this activity can increase aggression in the short term and suspicions that it may contribute to the obesity epidemic, the AMA wants to increase awareness of the need to monitor and restrict video game and Internet use among children and adolescents. The organization also wants to encourage research into the long-term impact, both good and bad, and a determination of safe limits for screen time.

"The recognition of this as a problem by the medical community is only in its infancy, and the research follows rather than precedes recognition that something is a problem," said Thomas Allen, MD, a psychiatrist from Towson, Md., speaking for MedChi, the Maryland State Medical Society.