U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller is calling on the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a comprehensive study of the effects of violent video games and other violent media programming on kids.
He was at the Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center in Martinsburg on Monday afternoon to talk about the effort with concerned parents, teachers, mental health experts, representatives from the video game industry and others.
Common Sense Media President and CEO Jim Steyer was one of the people who attended the hearing. “We believe that that research will just reinforce the idea that there is a link (between violent media and violent behavior),” he said.
“That matters because we’re all concerned about this.”
His group is a national organization focused on improving the media lives of kids and families. Steyer says there has to be some accountability when it comes to, what he calls, the correlation between violent media content and violent behavior.
“The industry has a responsibility to (a) voluntarily limit violent content and (b) stop marketing it to children,” Steyer said on Monday’s MetroNews Talkline.
Sen. Rockefeller, the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, has introduced The Violent Content Research Act of 2013 on Capitol Hill.
On Tuesday, he was scheduled to be in Morgantown to talk about protecting kids online during a hearing at West Virginia University’s Erickson Alumni Center.