We’re probably preaching to the choir with this one, but did you know that there is still no proven link between video games and real-world violence? That’s not just a bunch of hardcore gamers saying that, by the way, but the American Psychological Association, which recently noted is “no connection” between the two. Politicians and pundits have been beating on this old horse in the wake of the recent tragic mass shootings in Dayton and El Paso as well as several near-misses over the course of last week and weekend, and we covered how TV networks and retailers were balking at the optics of promoting graphically violent games. But it seems that fewer and fewer people are actually buying it when the science simply doesn’t back it up.
Villanova University psychology professor Patrick Markey (you’ll know that name) is quoted by CNBS as saying, if anything, games make the world more peaceful: “The research is not there to suggest that there is a link between violent video games and these horrific acts of violence. When we look at when people play video games, we actually see a dip in violent crimes… and we don’t see an uptick later on.”
We covered the uselessness of this manufactured moral panic last week: “We all know games aren’t the problem here, and so do the people condemning them. These desperate political gambits didn’t work 20 or 30 years ago, and they certainly won’t work now that gaming is a mainstream hobby and pastime for multiple generations far outnumbering their lower-tech forebears.”
