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 Researchers asked 65 players, ages 13 to 50, to list their favorite
games and recall how many of these depicted tobacco use.
Participants remembered playing 118 different games that are
evaluated by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB), an
industry group in the U.S. that provides voluntary content warnings
designed to flag themes that may not be appropriate for younger
players.
Players recalled seeing tobacco featured in 31 percent of the ESRB-rated
games, but only 8 percent of games carried tobacco content warnings.
Gamers also observed smoking more often than they realized.
Researchers assessed the games themselves and found 42 percent
contained tobacco imagery.
“We were surprised at the amount of tobacco imagery in video games,”
said study co-author Susan Forsyth. “The connection between viewing
smoking imagery and adolescent smoking uptake has been well
established by numerous studies, yet tobacco imagery in video games
seems to be flying under the radar.”
Most smokers try tobacco for the first time before they reach
adulthood, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. Each day in the U.S. alone, more than 3,800 youth 18 and
younger smoke their first cigarette, the CDC says.
While many factors can influence whether children and teens reach
for that first cigarette – including whether their parents or close
friends smoke – video games and other mass media depicting tobacco
in a favorable light can make the habit seem acceptable, if not
desirable.
Forsyth and co-author Ruth Malone in the nursing school at the
University of California, San Francisco set out to assess whether
tobacco imagery was clearly labeled on packaging parents might
review to determine whether a particular game might be appropriate
for their child.
There were 20 adolescents among the study participants, and they all
reported playing games rated “M” for Mature by ESRB, a category for
ages 17 and up, the researchers report in Tobacco Control. These
youngsters typically played video games for about four hours a day
and started playing at around age 6.
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The researchers found that 42 percent of the ESRB-rated games
carried an “M” label. Of these, 76 percent contained tobacco imagery
but just 4 percent mentioned tobacco on the package warnings.
The study is small, and researchers didn’t evaluate how often
tobacco appeared in the games, making it impossible to assess
whether players observed smoking repeatedly or only in a scene or
two, the authors acknowledge.
It’s also possible that by relying on teens to recall what they saw
in the past, the study might underestimate the impact of exposure to
these images, said Seth Noar, a communications researcher at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“This is a ‘free recall’ task and a high bar to meet,” Noar, who
wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.
Like advertising, video games can deliver visual cues to try
products even when players have no memory of the images, said Jay
Hull, a psychology researcher at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New
Hampshire.
“It is possible that players are absorbing messages about tobacco or
smoking in these games without even realizing it,” Hull, who wasn’t
involved in the study, said by email.
With the current rating system, parents may not get a complete
picture of what their children observe if they don’t sit down and
play through the video games with their kids, said Dr. Leslie
Walker, chief of adolescent medicine at Seattle Children’s Hospital.
“Although this study is small, it was well done and the window that
it gives of the inconsistency of video game ratings should be enough
to take a second look at what parents are relying on to buy games
for their children,” Walker, who wasn’t involved in the study, said
by email.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1VdUKrz Tobacco Control, online September 15,
2015.
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