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Do video games lead to violence? well I believe not because if you play something like a football video game dosen't mean your going to become a super good football player in real life; Same with violent video games just because you play dosen't mean your going to be a monster in the real world. Some people like me believe that people are looking for something to blame when a tragedy like the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Florida happen. people wanna just point there finger at some thing to get it over with and not facing the true facts.

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computer science and information technology

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"I'm hearing more and more people saying the level of violence on video games is really shaping young people's thoughts," Trump said. But some experts' findings disagree.

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Are video games linked to real world violence?

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Intuitively, it makes sense Splatterhouse and Postal 2 would serve as virtual training sessions for teens, encouraging them to act out in ways that mimic game-related violence. But many studies have failed to find a clear connection between violent game play and belligerent behavior, and the controversy over whether the shoot-'em-up world transfers to real life has persisted for years. A new study published on October 1 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences tries to resolve the controversy by weighing the findings of two dozen studies on the topic.

The meta-analysis does tie violent video games to a small increase in physical aggression among adolescents and preteens. Yet debate is by no means over. Whereas the analysis was undertaken to help settle the science on the issue, researchers still disagree on the real-world significance of the findings.

This new analysis attempted to navigate through the minefield of conflicting research. Many studies find gaming associated with increases in aggression, but others identify no such link. A small but vocal cadre of researchers have argued much of the work implicating video games has serious flaws in that, among other things, it measures the frequency of aggressive thoughts or language rather than physically aggressive behaviors like hitting or pushing, which have more real-world relevance.

Jay Hull, a social psychologist at Dartmouth College and a co-author on the new paper, has never been convinced by the critiques that have disparaged purported ties between gaming and aggression. "I just kept reading, over and over again, [these] criticisms of the literature and going, 'that's just not true,'" he says. So he and his colleagues designed the new meta-analysis to address these criticisms head-on and determine if they had merit.

Hull and colleagues pooled data from 24 studies that had been selected to avoid some of the criticisms leveled at earlier work. They only included research that measured the relationship between violent video game use and overt physical aggression. They also limited their analysis to studies that statistically controlled for several factors that could influence the relationship between gaming and subsequent behavior, such as age and baseline aggressive behavior.

Even with these constraints, their analysis found kids who played violent video games did become more aggressive over time. But the changes in behavior were not big. "According to traditional ways of looking at these numbers, it's not a large effect-I would say it's relatively small," he says. But it's "statistically reliable-it's not by chance and not inconsequential."

Their findings mesh with a 2015 literature review conducted by the American Psychological Association, which concluded violent video games worsen aggressive behavior in older children, adolescents and young adults. Together, Hull's meta-analysis and the APA report help give clarity to the existing body of research, says Douglas Gentile, a developmental psychologist at Iowa State University who was not involved in conducting the meta-analysis. "Media violence is one risk factor for aggression," he says. "It's not the biggest, it's also not the smallest, but it's worth paying attention to."

Yet researchers who have been critical of links between games and violence contend Hull's meta-analysis does not settle the issue. "They don't find much. They just try to make it sound like they do," says Christopher Ferguson, a psychologist at Stetson University in Florida, who has published papers questioning the link between violent video games and aggression.

Ferguson argues the degree to which video game use increases aggression in Hull's analysis-what is known in psychology as the estimated "effect size"-is so small as to be essentially meaningless. After statistically controlling for several other factors, the meta-analysis reported an effect size of 0.08, which suggests that violent video games account for less than one percent of the variation in aggressive behavior among U.S. teens and pre-teens-if, in fact, there is a cause-and effect relationship between game play and hostile actions. It may instead be that the relationship between gaming and aggression is a statistical artifact caused by lingering flaws in study design, Ferguson says.

Johannes Breuer, a psychologist at GESIS-Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Germany, agrees, noting that according to "a common rule of thumb in psychological research," effect sizes below 0.1 are "considered trivial." He adds meta-analyses are only as valid as the studies included in them, and that work on the issue has been plagued by methodological problems. For one thing, studies vary in terms of the criteria they use to determine if a video game is violent or not. By some measures, the Super Mario Bros. games would be considered violent, but by others not. Studies, too, often rely on subjects self-reporting their own aggressive acts, and they may not do so accurately. "All of this is not to say that the results of this meta-analysis are not valid," he says. "But things like this need to be kept in mind when interpreting the findings and discussing their meaning."

Hull says, however, that the effect size his team found still has real-world significance. An analysis of one of his earlier studies, which reported a similar estimated effect size of 0.083, found playing violent video games was linked with almost double the risk that kids would be sent to the school principal's office for fighting. The study began by taking a group of children who hadn't been dispatched to the principal in the previous month and then tracked them for a subsequent eight months. It found 4.8 percent of kids who reported only rarely playing violent video games were sent to the principal's office at least once during that period compared with 9 percent who reported playing violent video games frequently. Hull theorizes violent games help kids become more comfortable with taking risks and engaging in abnormal behavior. "Their sense of right and wrong is being warped," he notes.

Hull and his colleagues also found evidence ethnicity shapes the relationship between violent video games and aggression. White players seem more susceptible to the games' putative effects on behavior than do Hispanic and Asian players. Hull isn't sure why, but he suspects the games' varying impact relates to how much kids are influenced by the norms of American culture, which, he says, are rooted in rugged individualism and a warriorlike mentality that may incite video game players to identify with aggressors rather than victims. It might "dampen sympathy toward their virtual victims," he and his co-authors wrote, "with consequences for their values and behavior outside the game."

Social scientists will, no doubt, continue to debate the psychological impacts of killing within the confines of interactive games. In a follow-up paper Hull says he plans to tackle the issue of the real-world significance of violent game play, and hopes it adds additional clarity. "It's a knotty issue," he notes-and it's an open question whether research will ever quell the controversy.

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Do Violent Video Games Trigger Aggression?

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Intuitively, it makes sense Splatterhouse and Postal 2 would serve as virtual training sessions for teens, encouraging them to act out in ways that mimic game-related violence. But many studies have failed to find a clear connection between violent game play and belligerent behavior, and the controversy over whether the shoot-'em-up world transfers to real life has persisted for years.

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There is concern among parents, teachers, and society at large, that children who play violent video games, particularly for extended periods of time, might then engage in violent behaviour, or even copy acts of violence experienced during game play. Research to address these concerns is important given that 97% of American teens play video games[i] and children report that they prefer violent to non-violent games[ii], so it's unsurprising that there's plenty of studies that look at this issue.

What questions should be asked?

Researchers need to distinguish correlation from cause. For example, it might be that individuals with greater levels of pre-existing aggression prefer to play more aggressive video games, in which case a correlation would not suggest that the games caused the aggression. By contrast, exposure to aggressive games may be the cause of more aggressive behaviour. Evidence in support of this second possibility would need to use two matched groups, one exposed to the aggressive games, another exposed to some similarly arousing / engaging but not aggressive activity. An increase in aggression should be observed only in the later behaviour of the aggressive game group. Even here, we need to ask, what behaviour will be measured, and how much later should we expect to see the effects - half an hour? The following week?

What's the evidence?

Not all studies have found a relationship[iii] between exposure to violent video games and aggression in children. However, the vast majority of work does show a relationship. In a recent meta-analysis of 98 studies, involving 36,965 participants, violent video games were convincingly shown to influence social behaviour[iv]. The fact that studies have taken a variety of forms strengthens the certainty of the relationship.

Some work looks at the causal effect of game play by asking some individuals to play violent games in the lab, while others play non-violent games, then measuring the behaviour of each group in social tasks afterwards. These studies have shown that playing violent games results in immediate changes to behaviour[v]. For example, after playing violent games participants are more likely to 'punish' unseen opponents in a task with loud noise bursts, compared to peers who had played a non-violent video game. Young adults also show physiological desensitisation, as measured by less of an increase in heart rate and skin conductance, to scenes of real life violence[vi]. Individuals who had played violent, compared with non-violent, games were also less likely to report hearing a fight staged outside the laboratory, judged the fight as less serious, and were slower to respond when they offered help[vii]. More recently, after violent video game play, children have been shown to be more likely to handle real, disabled hand guns and pull the trigger more often during play[viii].

Other studies have considered longitudinal effects, where individuals have been followed over time and video game play at point A has been related to aggression at later point B, both in the lab and also in real life; the more violent play individuals engaged in, the steeper the increase in aggressive behaviour[ix]. The size of the effects found in most studies is small to medium, but pretty consistent, even with children's levels of aggression at the start of the study taken into account [x].

As a body of work this indicates that violent games do influence behaviour, rather than just indicating that violent children engage in video games. Exactly how violent game play and later violent tendencies are linked is not really clear. One possibility is that children become desensitised to violence when they're exposed to violence during game play[xi]. Another possibility is that it's not the violence of game play that's the problem as such, but rather the element of competition that leads to violent feelings afterwards, especially in those who lost the competition during game play [xii]. Indeed, competitive game play in children is associated with decreases in pro-social behaviour over time [xiii].

It's also important to acknowledge however, that although playing violent games does predict both short-term and long-term aggressive behaviour, other factors such as being male and living in poverty have a greater impact on these outcomes[xiv]. It's been suggested that these other effects dwarf the influence of video game play, making it inconsequential [xv].

The effects vary across individuals

The effects of violent games don't seem to be equal for everyone, however. Short-term effects in the laboratory are found to be larger for undergraduate men than women[xvi], and younger children are more likely to be affected by violent games if they have a high score on the personality trait 'neuroticism' and a low score on the traits 'agreeableness' and 'conscientiousness'[xvii]. In terms of the game, playing with a personalised avatar has been found to result in more arousal and more aggressive behaviour than when playing with a generic character[xviii].

The good news

The good news is that pro-social games, where the main aim is to help someone else, have a positive effect on behaviour[xix] to the same extent that violent games have a negative effect. One study asked different groups of participants to play the same game (Halo II) but gave them different objectives, with either co-operative or competitive play scenarios. The authors found increased pro-social behaviours only in those playing co-operatively, suggesting that context rather than content might be important[xx]. So the power of video games is potentially beneficial for social development, and it's even been suggested that pro-social game play in children could be used to prospectively reduce domestic violence when those children grow up [xi]. Playing action video games has also been used to enhance visual attention and results in faster reaction times[xxii] (see ' You can train your brain with digital media ' for more on this).

Outstanding questions

There are still notable questions that have not been adequately considered. Firstly, is there a real-life impact of violent game play on violent crime? The rise seen in video game play over recent decades has not been accompanied by a rise in youth crime rates, and in fact violent crime in youth has fallen over this period. However, there are so many factors that influence crime rates that it would be difficult to pinpoint the effects of any given one, and the little research that has been done suggests that violent game play is not related to self-reported bullying behaviour [xxiii]. Another major question is whether the same games have a greater impact on the behaviour of younger than older children. How important is it that parents obey the ratings on games? For example, is Call of Duty likely to have more of an effect on 14 year olds than on the 18 year olds for whom it is intended? There is currently some evidence that younger children are more effected by violent games than are older children[xxiv], but this is a sorely neglected area of research at the moment.

Take the rough with the smooth

Although the link is still debated, and certainly other factors have a bigger influence on aggression, the impact of video games on the behaviour of children and young adults is undeniable both in the short-term and the long-term. Strikingly, one group have noted that the relationship between exposure to violent media and aggressive behaviour is as higher than the link between exposure to lead and IQ scores in children[xxv].

The potency of video games is an important issue for society, partly because their effects can be negative, but also partly because they can, and could be, positive; indeed it would be difficult to argue for one of these positions without the other. What's vital is that we understand what aspects of games or game play behaviour have an impact, and on whom. The verdict? Although not everyone agrees, the evidence comes down on the side of neuro-hit.

Further resources

For a summary by one of the key researchers in this field see: Media Violence effects on Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults by Craig Anderson.

For a range of expert opinions see: Bavelier, D., Green, C. S., Han, D. H., Renshaw, P. F., Merzenich, M. M., & Gentile, D. A. (2011). Brains on video games. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 12, 763-768.

The Dana Foundation have an excellent and more in-depth blog on this topic.

© CEN

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Violent video games make children more violent

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There is concern among parents, teachers, and society at large, that children who play violent video games, particularly for extended periods of time, might then engage in violent behaviour, or even copy acts of violence experienced during game play.

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After nearly every mass shooting since Columbine, policymakers have cited violent video games as a likely culprit. The evidence doesn't support this claim. As Deborah Todd recently argued convincingly in Slate, the focus on games instead of actual gun control measures tends to be a misguided distraction at best. And yet, according to White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, video game companies should look out for invitations from the White House for a meeting with the president this week to discuss the " ongoing debate over school safety."

This puts game developers in a familiar and frustrating position, because talking to Trump seems unlikely to do much more than waste everyone's time. But there are things the game industry can and should be doing to address gun culture-not as the origin of the problem, but as part of a wider movement to help fix it.

First, just as we're now holding corporate sponsors of the NRA to account, it's time for video game studios to take a hard look at their own financial ties to the gun industry. Real-world guns were largely absent from mainstream gaming until 1999, when two college students proved there was a market for them-their amateur modification of the existing game Half-Life, known as Counter-Strike, launched a multibillion-dollar franchise and a hunger for "realistic" shooters that has dominated the industry ever since.

"We're starting to question if conflict has to be the core of our forms of art andentertainment." - Brie Code

This new obsession with authenticity paved the way for licensing agreements between game studios and gun manufacturers, which can take the form of a one-time royalty fee or a percentage of sales. Some gun manufacturers even make demands as to how their products are portrayed in-game: Ralph Vaughn, the man who brokers these deals for Barrett Firearms, told Eurogamer that he ensures the company's rifles are used only by "the good guys." He's mindful of the fact that "[v]ideo games expose our brand to a young audience who are considered possible future owners"; many come out of military games with fond memories and in-depth knowledge of the weapons that saw them through a difficult campaign. This connection is troubling to Robert Yang, a professor at the NYU Game Center, who told his students in a lecture on first-person shooters, "We are basically the marketing arm of the gun industry." Severing these commercial ties, though perhaps daunting for studios that have been rewarded by the "authenticity" such brands confer, is a necessary step for the industry.

Mass shootings have spurred game designers to action before. Charlie Cleveland was in the early stages of developing the game that would become Subnautica when Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Cleveland resolved to create a game that could be "one vote toward a world with less guns." They're completely absent from the final product, which was released in January and dedicated to the families of Newtown. "I've never believed that video game violence creates more real-world violence," he wrote. "But I couldn't just sit by and 'add more guns' to the world either."

Yang has also been reflecting on the place of games in our wider culture. "If you think of yourself as making something that's culturally important to society, that millions of people do for hours a day, and you're not wondering what you can do to change things or help, that's really fucked up," he said. He favors a more proactive approach to societal problems. "Instead of trying to be so defensive-like, 'It's not us, it's not us'-you should be asking, 'What can we do?' "

Game designer Brie Code is doing just that. After serving as lead programmer on the rated-M-for-intense-violence Assassin's Creed franchise, she's something of an expert on combat-centric gameplay. But her love for games goes well beyond combat. "I love video games because I love exploration, organization, and stories," she said. Working on Assassin's Creed allowed her to fulfill those passions, but in her largely unsuccessful quest to find titles that would resonate with friends, she realized that the industry's overwhelming emphasis on win-or-die narratives might be alienating would-be gamers with other priorities.

So, in 2017, she founded TRU LUV, a studio devoted to games that follow a radically different framework built on care and connectivity. "We're starting to question if conflict has to be the core of our forms of art and entertainment," she said, adding that she's excited about the games she's seen in development, from AAA titles to mobile apps. Many seek to challenge the received wisdom that military realism is essential for commercial success and that conflict should be central to every game by design. It's a necessary, exciting step for an industry that, while not to blame for gun violence, still has plenty it can do to downsize guns' presence in our culture.

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Video Games Aren't to Blame for Gun Violence, but They Do Prop Up Gun Culture

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After nearly every mass shooting since Columbine, policymakers have cited violent video games as a likely culprit. The evidence doesn't support this claim. As Deborah Todd recently argued convincingly in Slate, the focus on games instead of actual gun control measures tends to be a misguided distraction at best.

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Key points

There is no solid, irrefutable evidence that violent video games lead to aggressive behavior.

Many violent video games are scary and inappropriate for some kids.

Understanding each child's needs and creating a plan that sets out rules for usage is a sensible way to approach video games.

If you know a tween, teenager, or avid gamer, you have probably heard about the latest video game phenomenon: Fortnite. In the game's Battle Royale mode, up to 100 players parachute into a small island, scavenge for armor and weapons, and then kill or hide from other players in an attempt to be the lone survivor. The game's cartoonish violence and quirky features-including costumes and custom dance moves-have attracted more than 125 million players across all the globe since its release last September.

While not overly gory, the premise for Fortnite is inherently violent; the primary goal is to kill other players. The popularity of these types of games, and this one in particular, raises clear questions about the effects of violent gaming. Specifically, do violent video games lead to real-life violence?

The research on this question is mixed. For decades, researchers have conducted studies to find out whether violent video games lead to problems such as aggression, lack of empathy, and poor performance in school. Many studies have found that people who play violent video games are more likely to engage in aggressive behavior. In fact, there was enough research leading to this conclusion that the American Psychological Association (APA) published a policy statement in 2015 concluding that playing violent video games leads to more aggressive moods and behaviors and detracts from the players' feeling of empathy and sensitivity to aggression.

But a large contingent of researchers focused on pediatric and adolescent health disagree. In fact, a group of 230 scholars from universities across the globe published an open letter in 2013 calling the APA's stance on violent video games "misleading and alarmist." And many of those same scholars spoke out after the 2015 policy statement.

Last summer, a division within the APA focused on the media published their own statement advising government officials and the news media to avoid attributing acts of violence to video games or other violent media. Here's why:

Large analyses of violent crime and video violent game use find no evidence that increased sales of violent video games lead to a spike in violent crimes. Researchers make the case that if violent games directly led to violent behavior, the data would show increases in violent crime on a large scale as more people played violent games. In fact, there is some evidence that as more youth play video games, rates of youth violence have decreased.

A recent analysis finds that research on video games is prone to false positives and false negatives, which leads to faulty conclusions.

Another review finds that much of the research on violence and video games is affected by publication bias; essentially, studies that concluded that video games lead to aggression and violence are more likely to be published than studies that find violent video games don't have an effect on violence. As a result, large reviews of the data conclude violent video games lead to aggression without considering research to the contrary.

There is emerging research that finds no link between violent games and negative outcomes, such as reduced empathy, aggression, and depression.

That's a lot of conflicting perspectives, so what's the take-home message here? First, there is no solid, irrefutable evidence that violent video games lead to aggressive behavior. That does not mean that every game is for every child. Certainly, many violent video games are scary and inappropriate for some kids. Understanding each child's needs and creating a plan that sets out rules for media use and monitors kids' activities on screens is a sensible way to approach video games.
Please visit Cornell University's Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research's website for more information on our work solving human problems. LinkedIn Image Credit: Littlekidmoment/Shutterstock

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Do Violent Video Games Make Kids More Violent?

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Research explains they may not be as destructive as we think.

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As many as 97% of US kids age 12-17 play video games, contributing to the $21.53 billion domestic video game industry. More than half of the 50 top-selling video games contain violence.

Violent video games have been blamed for school shootings, increases in bullying, and violence towards women. Critics argue that these games desensitize players to violence, reward players for simulating violence, and teach children that violence is an acceptable way to resolve conflicts.

Video game advocates contend that a majority of the research on the topic is deeply flawed and that no causal relationship has been found between video games and social violence. They argue that violent video games may provide a safe outlet for aggressive and angry feelings and may reduce crime. Read more background...

Pro & Con Arguments

Pro 1

Playing violent video games causes more aggression, bullying, and fighting.

60% of middle school boys and 40% of middle school girls who played at least one Mature-rated (M-rated) game hit or beat up someone, compared with 39% of boys and 14% of girls who did not play M-rated games. A 2014 peer-reviewed study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that habitual violent video game playing had a causal link with increased, long-term, aggressive behavior. Several peer-reviewed studies have shown that children who play M-rated games are more likely to bully and cyberbully their peers, get into physical fights, be hostile, argue with teachers, and show aggression towards their peers throughout the school year.
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Pro 2

There is broad consensus among medical associations, pediatricians, parents, and researchers that violent video games increase aggressive behavior.

A 2014 study published in Psychology of Popular Media Culture found that 90% of pediatricians and 67% of parents agreed or strongly agreed that violent video games can increase aggressive behavior among children. . More than 98% of pediatricians in the United States say that too much exposure to violent media heightens childhood aggression. In addition, 66% of researchers agreed or strongly agreed. Since only 17% of researchers disagreed or strongly disagreed, and 17% were undecided, the study concluded "That means that among researchers who have an opinion, eight out of 10 agree that violent games increase aggression." A joint statement by six leading national medical associations, including the American Medical Association and American Psychological Association, stated: "Well over 1,000 studies - including reports from the Surgeon General's office, the National Institute of Mental Health, and numerous studies conducted by leading figures within our medical and public health organizations - our own members - point overwhelmingly to a causal connection between media violence and aggressive behavior in some children."
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Pro 3

Simulating violence such as shooting guns and hand-to-hand combat in video games can cause real-life violent behavior.

Video games often require players to simulate violent actions, such as stabbing, shooting, or dismembering someone with an ax, sword, chainsaw, or other weapons. Game controllers are so sophisticated and the games are so realistic that simulating the violent acts enhances the learning of those violent behaviors. A 2015 peer-reviewed study found "compelling evidence that the use of realistic controllers can have a significant effect on the level of cognitive aggression." Two teenagers in Tennessee who shot at passing cars and killed one driver told police they got the idea from playing Grand Theft Auto III. Bruce Bartholow, professor of psychology at the University of Missouri, spoke about the effects of simulating violence: "More than any other media, these video games encourage active participation in violence. From a psychological perspective, video games are excellent teaching tools because they reward players for engaging in certain types of behavior. Unfortunately, in many popular video games, the behavior is violence."
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Pro 4

Many perpetrators of mass shootings played violent video games.

The teenage shooters in the 1999 Columbine High School massacre of 13 students played violent combat games. Many mass shootings have been carried out by avid video game players: James Holmes in the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting (2012); Jared Lee Loughner in the Arizona shooting that injured Rep. Gabby Giffords and killed six others (2011); and Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway (2011) and admitted to using the game Modern Warfare 2 for training. An FBI school shooter threat assessment stated that a student who makes threats of violence should be considered more credible if he or she also spends "inordinate amounts of time playing video games with violent themes."
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Pro 5

Violent video games desensitize players to real-life violence.

Desensitization to violence was defined in a Journal of Experimental Social Psychology peer-reviewed study as "a reduction in emotion-related physiological reactivity to real violence." The study found that just 20 minutes of playing a violent video game "can cause people to become less physiologically aroused by real violence" People desensitized to violence are more likely to commit a violent act. By age 18, American children will have seen 16,000 murders and 200,000 acts of violence depicted in violent video games, movies, and television. A Sep. 2011 peer-reviewed study found a causal link between violent video game exposure and an increase in aggression as a result of a reduction in the brain's response to depictions of real-life violence. Studies have found reduced emotional and physiological responses to violence in both the long and short term. In a 2005 peer-reviewed study, violent video game exposure was linked to reduced P300 amplitudes in the brain, which is associated with desensitization to violence and increases in aggressive behavior.
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Pro 7

Exposure to violent video games is linked to lower empathy and decreased kindness.

Empathy, the ability to understand and enter into another's feelings is believed to inhibit aggressive behavior. In a study of 150 fourth and fifth graders by Jeanne Funk, PhD, Distinguished University Professor of Psychology at the University of Toledo, violent video games were the only type of media associated with lower empathy. A study published in the American Psychological Association's Psychological Bulletin found that exposure to violent video games led to a lack of empathy and prosocial behavior (positive actions that benefit others). Eight independent tests measuring the impact of violent video games on prosocial behavior found a significant negative effect, leading to the conclusion that "exposure to violent video games is negatively correlated with helping in the real world." Several studies have found that children with high exposure to violent media display lower moral reasoning skills than their peers without that exposure. A meta-analysis of 130 international studies with over 130,000 participants concluded that violent video games "increase aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, and aggressive behaviors, and decrease empathic feelings and prosocial behaviors."
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Pro 9

The American Psychological Association (APA) lists violent video games as a risk factor for aggressive behavior.

In its Aug. 2015 resolution on violent video games, the APA wrote: "WHEREAS many factors are known to be risk factors for increased aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition and aggressive affect, and reduced prosocial behavior, empathy and moral engagement, and violent video game use is one such risk factor." Dr. Craig Anderson, PhD, Director of the Center for the Study of Violence at Iowa State University, wrote: "Playing a violent video game isn't going to take a healthy kid who has few other risk factors and turn him into a school shooter, but it is a risk factor that does drive the odds for aggression up significantly."
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Con 1

Sales of violent video games have significantly increased while violent juvenile crime rates have significantly decreased.

Total US sales of video game hardware and software increased 204% from 1994 to 2014, reaching $13.1 billion in 2014, while violent crimes decreased 37% and murders by juveniles acting alone fell 76% in that same period. The juvenile Violent Crime Index arrest rate in 2012 was 38% below 1980 levels and 63% below 1994, the peak year. The number of high school students who had been in at least one physical fight decreased from 43% in 1991 to 25% in 2013, and student reports of criminal victimization at school dropped by more than half from 1995 to 2011. An Aug. 2014 peer-reviewed study found that: "Annual trends in video game sales for the past 33 years were unrelated to violent crime... Monthly sales of video games were related to concurrent decreases in aggravated assaults."
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Con 3

The US Supreme Court ruled that violent video games do not cause youth to act aggressively.

In Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (2011) the US Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that California could not ban the sale of violent video games to minors. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the majority opinion that studies purporting to show a connection between violent video games and harmful effects on children "have been rejected by every court to consider them, and with good reason: They do not prove that violent video games cause minors to act aggressively."
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Con 5

Violent video games allow players to release their stress and anger (catharsis) in the game, leading to less real world aggression.

A peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that children, especially boys, play video games as a means of managing their emotions: "61.9% of boys played to 'help me relax,' 47.8% because 'it helps me forget my problems,' and 45.4% because 'it helps me get my anger out." Researchers point to the cathartic effect of video games as a possible reason for why higher game sales have been associated with lower crime rates. A peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Adolescent Research concluded that "Boys use games to experience fantasies of power and fame, to explore and master what they perceive as exciting and realistic environments (but distinct from real life), to work through angry feelings or relieve stress, and as social tools." The games serve as a substitute for rough-and-tumble play.
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Con 6

Violent video game players know the difference between virtual violence in the context of a game and appropriate behavior in the real world.

By age seven, children can distinguish fantasy from reality, and can tell the difference between video game violence and real-world violence. Video game players understand they are playing a game. Kids see fantasy violence all the time, from Harry Potter and the Minions to Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry. Their ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality prevents them from emulating video game violence in real life. Exposure to fantasy is important for kids. Fisher-Price toy company stated: "Pretending is more than play: it's a major part of a child's development. Fantasy not only develops creative thinking, it's also a way for children to deal with situations and problems that concern them."
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Con 9

Many risk factors are associated with youth violence, but video games are not among them.

The US Surgeon General's list of risk factors for youth violence included abusive parents, poverty, neglect, neighborhood crime, being male, substance use, and mental health problems, but not video games. A peer-reviewed study even found a "real and significant" effect of hot weather on homicides and aggravated assaults, showing that heat is a risk factor for violence. Smoking is a known risk factor for lung cancer, but there is no good evidence that video game playing is a risk factor for violence. An Aug. 2014 peer-reviewed study published in Psychology of Popular Media Culture pointed out that "As more people have been exposed to violent video games, serious and deadly assaults have not increased." A 2014 peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Communication also found that as video game playing increased, there was less youth violence.
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Con 10

Violent video games provide opportunities for children to explore virtually the consequences of violent actions and to develop their moral compasses.

Violent games allow youth to experiment with moral issues such as war, violence, and death without real world consequences. A researcher at the Harvard Medical School Center for Mental Health and Media wrote about her research: "One unexpected theme that came up multiple times in our focus groups was a feeling among boys that violent games can teach moral lessons... Many war-themed video games allow or require players to take the roles of soldiers from different sides of a conflict, perhaps making players more aware of the costs of war."
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Con 11

Violent video games may decrease crime because people are busy playing the games instead of committing violent acts.

Some researchers say that violent people often seek out violent video games, and that the time they spend playing the games is taking them off the streets, leading to decreased crime. This is known as the "incapacitation effect." Steven Levitt, PhD, economics professor at the University of Chicago and co-author of Freakonomics, stated, "It just stands to reason that if you find an activity that keeps potential criminals busy for six waking hours a day, then it probably makes sense that they're going to be doing less crime." One study estimated that this effect leads to about ten fewer crimes per day nationwide.
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Con 13

The competitive nature of a video game is what arouses aggression, not the level of violent content.

A peer-reviewed study in Psychology of Violence determined that the competitive nature of a video game was related to aggressive behavior, regardless of whether the game contained violent content or not. The researchers concluded: "Because past studies have failed to equate the violent and nonviolent video games on competitiveness, difficulty, and pace of action simultaneously, researchers may have attributed too much of the variability in aggression to the violent content." A follow-up study tracked high school students for four years and came to the same conclusion: the competitive nature of the games led to the increased hostile behavior.
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Did You Know?

1. 90% of pediatricians and 67% of parents agreed or strongly agreed that violent video games can increase aggressive behavior among children.

2. Total US sales of video game hardware and software increased 204% from 1994 to 2014, reaching $13.1 billion in 2014, while violent crimes decreased 37% and murders by juveniles acting alone fell 76% in that same period.

3. An estimated four out of five US households with a male child own a video game system and worldwide sales of video games are predicted to reach $102.9 billion in 2017.

4. 60% of middle school boys and 40% of middle school girls who played at least one Mature-rated (M-rated) game hit or beat up someone, compared with 39% of boys and 14% of girls who did not play M-rated games.

5. In Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, the US Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that California could not ban the sale of violent video games to minors because studies "do not prove that violent video games cause minors to act aggressively."

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As many as 97% of US kids age 12-17 play video games, contributing to the $21.53 billion domestic video game industry. More than half of the 50 top-selling video games contain violence. Violent video games have been blamed for school shootings, increases in bullying, and violence towards women.