Maggie Cutler

About the author: Maggie Cutler is the author, at Nerve.com, of a biweekly column entitled "The Secret Life of Maggie Cutler," which satirizes the confusion between politics, media, and sex in American culture.

Thousands of studies have tried to determine how media violence affects children. However, all this research has produced no clear answers, and statements about "what the research shows" often exaggerate the actual evidence. It's almost impossible to separate media violence from all the other factors that can influence violent behavior. One thing that most researchers agree on is that real-life experiences are far more important than media violence in determining whether children commit violence.

Will girls imitate the new, kickass heroines in the Japanese anime Cardcaptors? Will the impressionable 12-year-olds...