This Friday and Saturday, Oct. 20 and 21, the National Institute on Media and the Family and ISU department of psychology will be hosting the National Summit on Video Games, Youth and Public Policy at the University of Minnesota.

Darin Broton, spokesperson for the National Institute on Media and the Family, said the summit was put together because within the past five to 10 years there has been an emerging trend of violence and sexual content in video games which blurs the line between reality and fantasy.

The event will bring together the country’s top experts in research, public policy and the video game industry to review the current rating systems for video games.

“Because the industry hasn’t done a decent enough job on the rating systems, and because the retailers haven’t enforced it, we needed to call a summit to look at the ratings and see if they are suitable or if there needs to be changes,” Broton said.

“While these games are labeled for mature audiences, we know that teenagers have access to them whether through friends who have them or by going to a Wal-Mart, Target or Best Buy and purchasing them without being carded,” he said.

Broton said this summit is important because of the effect these games have on impressionable minds, such as an increase in aggression.

Douglas Gentile, assistant professor of psychology and director of research for the National Institute on Media and the Family, echoed these thoughts.

He said in the past 10 years, researchers have learned that video games are excellent teachers and are extending beyond teaching just the content of the game.

“We’re finding that video games are having a much greater effect on kids then we ever imagined,” he said. “That’s why it’s so important for parents to learn about them and start being involved in their kids’ video game habits. It’s also important for educators to know about it.”

Gentile is one of the organizers of the summit and will be speaking about research on the ratings and how valid and reliable they are.

His colleague Craig Anderson, distinguished professor of psychology, will be speaking on the effects of video games.

Gentile said the summit will accomplish several things, including setting the agenda for the next 10 years about what research needs to be done and what actions can be taken now to improve the rating systems and to support parents.

He said another goal is to extend the dialogue between researchers and the video game industry.

“This has too often been framed as a ‘researchers versus the industry’ debate or an ‘Are games good or bad?’ debate; both are false dichotomies,” Gentile said. “I am hoping that by getting all of these top people together we can get beyond that level of dialogue and into something that’ll be fruitful.”