Do Video Games Make Us Violent?

Image of controller depiciting violence in video games debate

For years, the debate on video games and their impacts on the psyches of players has dominated social and political discourse, especially around industry regulations. The question of whether or not video games cause violence is certainly controversial and its fierce debate particularly arises in the aftermath of school shootings and mass murders. Naturally, people seek reasons to explain why these events occur and look for ways our society can stop them from happening again.  What fuels these debates is that In many cases, investigations reveal that the perpetrators of these heinous crimes spent enormous amounts of time playing violent video games.

For some, it is clear that video game violence contributed to these tragedies. Yet research shows that the incidence of youth violence in particular, is at an all time low, falling by half between 1994 and 2010 while video game sales have more than doubled in this since 1996.

Some politicians are convinced that pervasive violence in video games contribute to real acts of violence. Last month, Business Insider reported on a tax reform presented by the House GOP which sought to prevent creators of violent video games from receiving an R&D tax credit for research and experimentation.

Last year, the Obama administration sought to develop a $10 million research program to investigate the relationship between video game content and actual violence (it did not come to fruition thanks to low public interest around gun control measures).

Despite the strong anti-violent video game rhetoric and biases of the federal government, the Supreme Court ruled (in Brown vs. Entertainment Merchants, 2011) that video game content is protected under the First Amendment and can’t be regulated by government. The Court also dismissed psychology research as unpersuasive as some studies seem to support a causal relationship between violence in video games and aggressive behavior in real life while others support no clear link.

In an age when violence in video games is more vivid and graphic than ever before, it is natural for parents and educators to question if their kids and young adults should be left to play and watch what they want.

Peer-reviewed research is looked to as a source of objective truth but, as it stands now, the findings have not pointed to any clear answers. Though lack of clarity continues to dominate the debate, here are a few notable studies that can help guide your own thinking on this issue.

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