Here We Go Again: Let's Blame Video Games for Violence

Sadly, with every horrible mass killing -- such as the shootings in Aurora, Newton, and recently in New Mexico -- video games become a leading suspect as a means to influencing our youth to kill. This idea has even caused the federal government once again to take a look into the effects of video games on its consumers. However, do video games cause people to become savage killers? Do violent video games create future mass murders? Well let me wipe these fears away by saying that the research says it's inconclusive whether violent video games lead to violent behavior such as on the scale of recent events.

To get a better understanding of this conclusion, last year I undertook an independent study examining the effects of video games on violence. In this course I was introduced to the Iowa State University researchers, mainly C. A. Anderson, who suggest that video games lead to aggressive behavior. These researchers, using various quasi techniques to gauge aggressive behavior, have concluded that video games may eventually lead to violent behavior.

However, through my research I was introduced to Ferguson and J. A. Anderson's research on violence and media. Ferguson's work is very interesting as it directly relates to video games. He argued that video games cannot be easily associated with violent behavior. He found that as video games sales have exponentially increased in the past decade,  youth violence has decreased. Ferguson maintained that if video games were leading to violent behavior, the increase in sales of video games would correlate with an increase in violence in youths. But that is not the case. 

Furthermore, defining aggressive behavior is very problematic. What is aggressive behavior? Some studies that suggest violent media leads to violent behavior define aggressive behavior as merely someone thinking about being aggressive. Since researchers cannot ethically let their participants engage in violent behavior, other studies attempt to quantify violence through surveys of a gamers' feelings or excitement through gameplay. Thinking about about aggressive behavior or exhibiting excited behavior is much different than shooting 20 children at pointblank range. For these reasons, it is very difficult to know that being upset playing an FPS will lead to a person going on a massive killing spree. 

The facts just aren't there to truly show that violent video games, What the facts do say is that witnessing or experiencing violence in the home and/or in a person's community can influence a person to be violent way more than playing a violent video game. This is what does correlate with violent behavior, not just simply playing Grand Theft Auto.

Love to hear your thoughts on this. Post on the comments below.