Byron Review Released
Child Psychologist Tanya Byron released her much-anticipated review today…
“The Prime Minister asked me to conduct this Review in order to help parents and their children get the best from new technologies while protecting children from inappropriate or harmful material. The objectives of the Review were:
- To undertake a review of the evidence on risks to children’s safety and wellbeing of exposure to potentially harmful or inappropriate material on the internet and in video games.
- To assess the effectiveness and adequacy of existing measures to help prevent children from being exposed to such material and help parents understand and manage the risks of access to inappropriate content, and to make recommendations for improvements or additional action.“
The entire review is 200+ pages long so I have only read the summary and it seems thoughtful enough – Byron says she puts the children themselves at the center of her investigation and I’m certainly not going to question a professional without reason – especially since I haven’t read the methods and evidence she cites to support her suggestions. What I will say though is that the report is – perhaps unsurprisingly – hardly revolutionary if you’ve been reading up on the politics surrounding games. That parents need to be better informed of age ratings and parental control mechanisms, that schools need to educate E-Safety and that stores need to display information clearer – It’s all been said before.
I’m certainly no expert but from the store clerks I’ve talked to this comic illustrates the root of the problem – the problem isn’t with the people who care about finding the solutions, but rather with the people who don’t.