Speaking of movie ratings, is there actual evidence that watching "adult" movies at a young age is really bad for you? Kids watch pretty much whatever they want on the Internet these days, anyway.
Needless to say, this is very widely disputed and fought over. It's possibly more controversial than climate change.
However, it's quite widely studied[3], and the consensus position is fairly settled.
[1] http://www.jaacap.com/article/S0890-8567%2809%2960387-7/abst... (This is a meta-study)
[2] http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2014-41977-001/
[3] http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&q=impa...
[1] http://reason.com/archives/2014/11/14/video-game-violence-a-...
I find his argument compelling, but that doesn't mean the consensus is any different.
Are we now factory-farmed chicken (with our consent) and not humans?
Yes they're "people", but the young are also our charges, and we are responsible for their right upbringing.
If you found your 9yo kid-plus-friends going through your "best of" porn folder at a sleepover or whatever, would you stop them?
Also, we're not talking about 9yo kids/porn here - stop changing the goalposts - we're talking about 11yo boys and Aliens specifically.
Edit: Am I wrong? What exactly is the concern with Aliens here? Kids already like guys shooting aliens. Is there some sort of "alien-violence puberty" that I am not aware of?
Before you guys downvote me; I'm a parent. The boy is now 13yo and has been growing up with Star Trek, Dr Who, and whatever other sci-fi I like to watch. Even some Dr Who and Star Trek had material some of you would consider to be a bit 'iffy' to show kids. Doesn't seem to have done my son any harm - he's growing into a well balanced kid who goes to the Air Cadets, is popular, and does well at school.
As a parent, I see no harm in showing 11 year old boys Aliens.
Listen - you cannot wrap your kids up in cotton wool. The reality of life is way more brutal and uncaring than is shown in a mere film.
As long as these kids understand that it's just a story, that it involves plastic and latex models, these are actors, and so on and so forth - where's the harm for these 11yo kids?
Like I say - life is hard. I for one don't want my son growing up to be some limp-wristed little snowflake because I shielded him from all sorts of things. Seriously guys, get real.
No, people are arguing against films like Saw or their 1980s equivalents.
> Like I say - life is hard. I for one don't want my son growing up to be some limp-wristed little snowflake because I shielded him from all sorts of things. Seriously guys, get real.
What life lessons is a child going to learn from watching "Hostel"?
Also, "limp wristed"? FFS.
I despise people who try to 'win' their argument by constantly shifting the goalposts.
But, if you want to talk about Aliens: plenty of people in this thread have spoken about the distress they felt when watching Aliens as teenagers. What life lesson is an eleven year old going to learn from watching Aliens?
I'm also not trying to win any argument. I'm presenting my opinion - on that one specific topic of the original post.
A small selection of posters say they were 'distressed' when watching Aliens? What they call 'stress', I call 'being thrilled' - exactly the intention of the film.
"What life lesson is an eleven year old going to learn from watching Aliens?" - you learn whether or not you like watching these types of films or not. Don't like it? Don't watch another one. Lesson learned. Think you got traumatised over it in some way? Go find someone to talk about it and help you through it - nevertheless, a lesson was learned one way or the other.
I can't say I wanted or didn't want it, but I turned down some opportunities in high school and was fairly old, compared to the average in my circles, by the time I had sex.
I don't think the pornographic images (movies, not softcore, in my case) had much effect.
To this day, I struggle being alone at night. I'm jumpy, imagine all sorts of weird and nasties creeping and crawling around the dark recesses of whatever room I'm in. It's not debilitating, as I've learned to consciously reason out of my fear of irrational things, but it still pops up in my head. Still makes me jumpy. Still makes my heart-race, and still pisses me off that my mind would do that to me.
Needless to say, I'm not showing any such movies to my kids until they're at-least mid-teens.
Your anecdote shows that at least some kids do _not_ get those lifelong anxiety issues from the same.
How does yours "counter" zo1's in the slightest? That would be like the tobacco industry saying "but look at all the smokers who never got cancer!".
I'm (honestly, as a human being to another) glad you don't seem to have been affected (overly) by your caretakers abusing you, but you can't seriously be advocating this kind of behavior, enough to argue for it?
No it doesn't.
It shows that at least one person has lifelong anxiety issues that they attribute to having watched horror movies.
I don't have anxiety issues and I watched horror movies at a young age, maybe I would have anxiety issues if I hadn't? Maybe on average it has a positive effect on anxiety? Maybe it's completely unrelated. You can't draw any conclusions from a couple of anecdotes
I think most people do, actually, regardless of what types of movies they watched when they were little.
Darkness invokes a primal fear in animals that have not evolved to operate comfortably in it (such as felines).
Anyway, I think so too. Humans seem to have an innate fear of the dark, and any recent memory of danger will increase that effect. Heck, I'm an adult and still after watching something like Aliens I get seriously stressed when going to bathroom at night. And my closest friend openly refuses to watch scary movies when she expects to be alone home at night.
This is not evidence, it's an anecdote. It's speculation on your part that this is the reason you're scared. It could be, and maybe it's even likely--but it takes a wider study to have any kind of assurance that you're correct.
Don't get me wrong: Aliens was really freaking scary to me. Probably the most a movie has ever scared me. As soon as they encounter the first xenomorph it's pretty much sheer terror for the next hour.
I have seen a lot of movies rated for adult with my daughter but not horror like that. I think every person is different, use the common sense.
That is one of the reasons that I got a dog. Having another being in the house is a massive difference from being alone, even if that being can't talk and is a bit of a scaredy cat himself.
Not that kids didn't see bad things in the bad old times - they probably saw more of it in real life - but the ubiquitousness of these devices is not necessarily only a good thing.
Personally, I'm pretty unflappable, although things like horror movies don't do anything for me at all. My wife cannot tolerate gross stuff at all. Criminal Minds (prime time TV fare) kills her appetite.
My son is too little to develop preferences, but my one nephew hates movies where someone pops from an off camera to attack somebody. Freaks him out, even in a not scary movie.