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Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz have now developed a method that can objectively evaluate the age at which children and adolescents can safely watch a movie. They measured the composition of air in cinemas as well as levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) during 135 screenings of eleven different movies. Over 13,000 audience members were involved. For a variety of film genres and age groups, the researchers found that isoprene levels reliably correlate with the age rating of a film. "Isoprene appears to be a good indicator of emotional tension within a group," says Jonathan Williams, group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry. "Our approach could therefore provide an objective criterion for deciding how movies should be classified."
They couldn't already objectively measure fear by the amount of urine-soaked seat cushions?
C. Stönner, A. Edtbauer, B. Derstroff, E. Bourtsoukidis, T. Klüpfel, J. Wicker, J. Williams. Proof of concept study: Testing human volatile organic compounds as tools for age classification of films. PLOS ONE, 2018; 13 (10): e0203044 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0203044
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday October 24 2018, @07:11PM (3 children)
The main reason we have movie ratings like this is because of the myth that children are innocent. The childhood innocence the various censors are trying to protect exists almost entirely in the minds of adults.
- When it comes to violence, kids are sometimes cruel and violent to each other, even at very young ages. Sometimes that's because they were trained to be cruel by cruel parents, sometimes it's just because they want the tonka truck and some other kid has it.
- As for seeing certain body parts, your average child sees their first female nipple within an hour of being born. Which makes sense, because that's the primary function of boobs, and there's nothing inherently obscene or sexual about them. And they're likely to, either by mistake or out of curiosity, see both male and female genitalia fairly early on in their lives as well.
- As for scatalogical stuff, every kid figures out pretty quickly that everybody poops, too.
- As for sex acts, again kids are a lot more exposed to that than their parents think they're exposed to it. If only accidentally walking in on mom & dad "wrestling" or something. Historically speaking, the vast majority of children were conceived when their older siblings were in the room, simply because there wasn't a separate room for mom & dad to be in while getting it on - presumably the parents didn't think the kids were watching at the time.
In general, I think the efforts to censor what kids can see are wrong. Then again, I'm not a parent, and I hear from the parents I know that being a parent changes your brain considerably.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday October 24 2018, @07:24PM
I think the idea is that kids don't have the layers of life experience to abrade the intensity of an experience. A traumatic experience early on can affect a child for the rest of his life in many ways. Most of us can understand that, because most of us can point to strong experiences in childhood, good or bad, that have shaped our lives and how we see the world.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @07:29PM
For most of a woman's life, breasts are explicitly sexual objects, accentuated to stand out.
Secondarily, they serve as a good place for an infant or 2 to suckle.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 24 2018, @09:39PM
Babies come from storks can only be tenable in an industrial era culture... livestock owning families likely involved the children having a pretty clear idea where babies generally come from. Even hunter-gatherer children likely had some experience with where baby animals come from.
I'd theorize that industrial era kids were the least reproductively educated generation of humans ever to exist, kinda a temp thing until the internet (which is for pr0n) came into being.