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...]
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.
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...
I've cited researchers (both with litanies of studies) downthread.
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.
That's what psych studies do - they establish correlations. People are not crash-test dummies that can be produced identically in quantities and experimented on. Different people respond to experiences differently, but that doesn't mean you can't say that those experiences are generally harmful or generally beneficial.
Nobody claims that psychology has the predictive power of physics, but that doesn't mean it has nothing useful to say.
And that's why they are useless. Because correlation isn't causation. Or in other words, because "aggressiveness is correlated to GTA" is fully compatible with GTA reducing aggressiveness. Whenever correlation studies try to give conclusions, they are reliably compatible with the opposite of their conclusions, so they are just nonsense...
Naturally the rest of society wants us to be docile, but it is not necessarily what is good for you. Also, the people with the guns usually win and set down the law. "We can talk about everything" is a lie.