The Video Game Dilemma
Video games are not the main cause behind extreme acts of violence in teens and young adults. The percentage of violent acts allegedly caused by video games is incredibly low. In today’s society, where video games are a usual pastime for young people, it has become increasingly easier to blame video games for acts of violence. Despite the fact that the majority of these accusations are proven false, politicians and news networks continue to fearmonger video games because it’s easier to shove all the blame towards them rather than addressing the actual issues. Many of these criminals don’t even play violent video games, and in many of the cases that they do, it is found they play non-violent, low-intensity video games, and not very often at that. The numerous studies that have been conducted on the connection between video games and violent acts do not prove what the general public believes about video games. If anything, these studies help to further prove that all humans respond differently to certain stimuli and that to blame video games for the majority of mass shootings and other violent crimes makes little to no sense. Video games are not the main cause for acts of extreme violence because there is little evidence to support the claim, and the studies that have been conducted flat out prove these claims to be wrong, and in many cases it has been found that video games as a whole can actually help to decrease crime rates and boost human functioning.
Video games are rarely the true cause for extremely violent acts, and numerous studies have proven this claim. Psychologist Patrick Markey's research shows 80 percent of mass shooters did not show an interest in violent video games. In response to President Trump accusing violent video games for a mass shooting in February of 2018, Markey had this to say, 'It seems like something that should make us safer so it's a totally understandable reaction. The problem is just the science, the data, does not back up that they actually have an effect.' (Werner) Patrick Markey has conducted numerous studies regarding a connection between acts of extreme violence and video games yet has not yet found a significant connection between them. Since video games started becoming popular, politicians and the general public have called for numerous studies to be conducted and for video games to be better regulated. In this regard one of the most political events concerning video games was the 1993 hearing on video game violence led by Senator Joseph Lieberman, resulting in the creation of the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) which is a self-regulatory organization whose purpose is to assign age and content ratings to video games. Since then, many laws and bills have been passed to further regulate the production and sale of “violent video games.” This has had little effect on mass crime rates. In a journal published by the American Phycological Association, co-written by Patrick Markey, Charlotte Markey, and Juliana French, their study of monthly changes in video games and violent crime found “the previous analysis revealed no link between changes in annual video game sales and changes in serious and deadly assaults across 33 years.” (Markey) The Entertainment Software Association, the biggest video game trade group, reiterated its position that there is no causal connection between video games and violence. “More than 165 million Americans enjoy video games, and billions of people play video games worldwide. Yet other societies, where video games are played as avidly, do not contend with the tragic levels of violence that occur in the U.S.” (LATimes) Simply put, it is very rare that video games have a real connection to acts of violent crime. This is proven by numerous studies and by these criminals themselves who have openly admitted that they do not play video games often enough to warrant blaming them for their behavior.
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Video games do have an effect on the human brain but it’s not in the ways most people believe as people react to different stimuli in their own personal way. While it is true that repeated exposure to violent themes can alter the way humans behave, it has not been proven to affect people in a way as to lead them to commit such violent acts like mass shooting. A study was conducted to determine the extent of the relationship between exposure to violence and desensitization towards violence. This study included one hundred and 50 fourth and fifth graders who were subjected to instances of real life violence and media violence. According to a journal article written by Jeanne Funk, psychologist at the University of Toledo, found that, “Regression analyses indicated that only exposure to video game violence was associated with (lower) empathy. Both video game and movie violence exposure were associated with stronger proviolence attitudes.” This study did prove that exposure to violent themes prevalent in some video games and movies did show a change in attitude towards violence on a short term scale. Long term changes were not recorded. The problem with these types of studies is that the questions pertaining to the subject’s changes in violent tendencies are presented immediately after said subject was given whatever stimuli the study saw fit to use. These studies have proven that exposure to violent themes, and in the context of this essay, video games, there is a slight change in behavior. Politicians and news networks use these types of studies to back their arguments that video games are one of the main reasons for crime rates in the United States. They are wrong to present these types of studies as they do not accurately represent how violent video games affect a person’s thought process long term. Several other study have made sure to record the long term effects of exposure to violent video games. “Results revealed that it was not the consumption of violent video games but rather an uncontrolled pattern of video game use that was associated with increasing aggressive tendencies.” (Staude) This study was conducted by German psychologist, Müller Staude, on four hundred and ninety-nine secondary school students between the ages of twelve and sixteen where the students completed a survey once every year for two years. Numerous studies have come to prove that while video games do change the way a person may behave, they cannot be fully blamed for mass crimes because the change is too small to have a lasting effect.
Video game consumption is proven to be associated with a decline in violence rates as well as even lessening aggressive behavior and decreasing bullying rates in some children. Several studies have linked this in part to an increase in video game production and sales. Christopher J. Ferguson, professor and co-chair of psychology at Stetson University, wrote an article in the Journal of Communication, published in 2014, presenting two studies of relationship between media violence rates with societal violence rates. In the second study, video game violence consumption is studied alongside violence rates from the 1990s to 2005. The results of the study have connected a link between video game consumption and a decrease in violence rates among teens and adolescents. Another study was published by Ferguson and independent researcher Cheryl Olson in Springer’s Journal of Youth and Adolescence. The researchers found that the consumption of video games actually had a calming effect on teens and adolecents with attention deficit symptoms and actually helped to reduce their aggressive behavior, more specifically, their tendency to bully others. Ferguson and Olson studied 377 American children, from various ethnic groups who had clinically elevated attention deficit or depressive symptoms. The children were part of an existing large federally funded project that examines the effect of video game violence on youths.
The study is important in light of ongoing public debate as to whether or not violent video games fuel behavioral aggression and societal violence among youths, especially among those with pre-existing mental health problems. Societal violence includes behavior such as bullying, physical fighting, criminal assaults and even homicide. And the news media often draws a link from the playing of violent video games to the perpetrators of school shootings in the United States.
Ferguson and Olson’s findings do not support the popular belief that violent video games increase aggression in youth who have a predisposition to mental health problems. The researchers found no association between the playing of violent video games and subsequent increased delinquent criminality or bullying in children with either clinically elevated depressive or attention deficit symptoms. Their findings are in line with those of a recent Secret Service report in which the occurrence of more general forms of youth violence were linked with aggressiveness and stress rather than with video game violence. Interestingly, the researchers of the current study found a few instances in which video game violence actually had a slight cathartic effect on children with elevated attention deficit symptoms and helped to reduce their aggressive tendencies and bullying behavior. Although Ferguson and Olson warned that their results could not be generalized to extreme cases such as mass homicides, they strongly advocate for a change in general perceptions about the influence of violent video games, even within the context of children with elevated mental health symptoms.
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