Have you heard the story about the suicide bomber? They found Angry Birds on his phone—he obviously got the idea from the game. You know, hours and hours of murdering pigs with birds, all that violence really got to him, screwed with his brain, and he snapped.
Oh, wait, you haven’t heard that story? Huh.
Well, what about the guy who was caught sticking his hands in people’s pockets to rob them in broad daylight? He learned that from Skyrim.
Wait, you haven’t heard that one either?
Well, certainly you’ve heard about the spate of violent carjackings that have been plaguing the county due to games like Grand Theft Auto and Saints’ Row, right?
Survey says: NOPE!
If your answer is “no,” that’s because that story, like the two before it, are all fake. “And the pretty ridiculous,” you might say. You’re right. They are. So why is it that people think it’s perfectly normal to argue Adam Lanza went and shot up Sandy Hook Elementary because of video games?
Before I get too rant-y, let me say this: What happened at Sandy Hooks was a horrific tragedy. My heart goes out to the families who lost loved ones. I am not trying to make light of this situation.
Here’s the rub—Adam Lanza was mentally ill, but video games didn’t make him that way.
The politicians would have you believe violent video games are an anomaly. Hate to break it to you folks—they’re the rule. Everything from Pokemon to licensed Lego games to the wide variety of first-person shooters on the market are violent. It’s a mater of degrees.
But they’re all fake. Fantasy. Fiction. You may as well blame movies or books or rock & roll for the same thing you’re blaming video for—they’ve been around for a lot longer. Oh, wait, we did do that! Maybe we should try something else, this time—like soda. Among young men and women soda is VERY popular, you know. Probably Adam Lanza drank soda. Maybe it was the chemicals in the soda that made him do it. Or maybe it was Twinkies. I hear that’s a thing.
Seriously, whenever someone starts blaming video games, I want to bring them to see my collection. I don’t try to flamethrower people because I like to hurl fireballs in Skyrim or beat people to death with wrenches because I enjoy Bioshock, any more than I run around pretending to be a wolf because I love Okami. Almost everyone I know under 30 plays video games—none of them have been in jail for violent offences. Actually, as far as I know none of them have ever been in jail at all.
Gee, that might put a dent in this “Video Games Lead to Violence” theory. Then again, maybe I’m about to go crazy violent and I don’t even know it!
Or, maybe, maybe—and I might be getting close enough to Occam’s razor to be cut with it—it’s not a case of violent video games making people crazy, but people who happen to be mentally ill are scorned by those around them, and people who are scorned by their peers become loners, and an easy way to entertain yourself when you’re alone is video games. That would mean video games aren’t the cause of any of these violent outbursts, mental disease is.
Radical, right?
I think this is an issue we’re always going to be dealing with. Fifty, sixty years ago, it was comic books that were ‘corrupting our youth’. Then it was TV, then it was movies. Hell, D&D caused a furor in the 70’s and 80’s because it was ‘obviously’ Satanic. Eventually something else will come along that will also become the easy scapegoat. When something horrific happens, people desperately want to be able to point to an easy solution.
That doesn’t mean we don’t need to advocate for sanity, though. It’s absolutely important that we keep shoving the discussion spotlight back on mental health and not the outward signs, like an obsession with a violent video game.
Good article, Caitlin.
There is no evidence that supports causation or correlation between video games and violence.
I find it disturbing that people have been quick to scapegoat video games for violent behavior… It was also problematic finding this little gem about not wanting a gaming convention in Duluth because ermagherd, violent behavior in our towns and the freakish gamers will ruin everythinnnnnng… http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/253127/
You know, just like how we ruin everything at GenCon by having a great time making new friends, sharing our interests with others, and bringing a boost to the local economy.
We’re just this awful menace. Pests. Like cockroaches that won’t die, right?
The argument is simultaneously insulting and dodging the real problems. It’s mind-boggling how anyone could go along with this kind of idea, and the people who spread it are deceivers spreading falsehoods and creating discord and fear. Blaming games, TV, music or any of that is just another way of taking the easy way out and not genuinely dealing with bad behavior in our society.
If your kid is a bad kid, who else to blame but the parents for poor child-rearing and the child his/herself for continuing to act in inappropriate ways? I think that once we hit a certain age, whether we have feelings of guilt or otherwise, it is made absolutely clear that certain things are wrong and frowned upon while other things are okay. Everyone KNOWS it is wrong to kill. Everyone KNOWS it is wrong to steal. Everyone KNOWS it is “better” to be kind than it is to be a jerk to someone else. It’s called self-responsibility, decency and respect for your fellow human being, and common effing sense.
ALSO.
I always laugh my butt off every time I see Mazes and Monsters. And this comic: http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.ASP
Even though we love to play within our fantasy worlds, I find that gamers are some of the most grounded, well-balanced, and realistic people. Just because we’re creative doesn’t mean we all have our head in the clouds.