The Truth About Violent Youth and Video Games

from http://gr.bolt.com/articles/violence/violence.htm


---
The Truth about Violent Youth and Video Games
by Duke Ferris

Thanks to the current media frenzy and barrage of lawsuits surrounding violent video games, I can’t tell people what I do for a living without getting a lecture on the current plague of youth violence and the scourge that is Grand Theft Auto. I decided it was time for a rebuttal more effective than shrugging and saying, “Well, I think you’re wrong.”

So I sat down to write this article, and started doing some research. What I discovered startled me. I'm not sure I have the ability to write a totally serious piece - it is not in my nature to be serious, nor the nature of GR - but the issues are very serious indeed and the evidence is very real.

I am even going to use charts. With words on 'em. We spare no expense.

First off, I have absolute proof that video games are not the cause of this epidemic of youth violence in America. No, really, I do. Ready?


There is no epidemic of youth violence in America.




The whole concept is a lie manufactured, distributed and perpetuated by the media. Kids are not killing each other more frequently than they used to. In fact, it turns out the opposite is true.

Check out that ugly graph on the right. It doesn't take a genius to conclude that violent crime is at the lowest it has been in a good thirty years. For effect, I’ve also marked the release of the Playstation console, the first Grand Theft Auto game, the PS2 console, and the infamous GTA 3. Wow, look at those surges in violence!

Believe it or not, I got that graph - and all the others in this piece - directly from the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Statistics. All I added was the video game timeline. This isn’t some privately-funded poll or crazy game journalist defense mechanism - this is the actual, most recent government data on crime as used by the FBI. The fact that they all max out at 2003 is irritating, but this debate has raged much longer than the past few months.


Please understand that I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I don’t think that there are any aliens at Area 51. I know that AIDS was not created in a secret government lab, I believe that men really landed on the moon, and I am 100% certain that Sasquatch shot JFK with the help of the Loch Ness monster. But something clearly isn’t right here. The government and the media just can’t go around making this stuff up, right?

Something must be missing. That first graph is the overall violent crime rate, and we’re talking about youth violence here. So I found the data sorted by age, and it turns out that through 2002, youth homicide actually dropped across the board, the only increase being among adults. If I may quote directly from the D.O.J. report, “Recently, the offending rates for 14-17 year-olds reached the lowest levels ever recorded.”

The lowest levels ever recorded. In other words, the Playstation era has, in fact, produced the most non-violent kids ever. But I thought video games were training children to kill? I’m sure I read something like that here and here and here and here and here and here.

To be fair, there have been about 300 studies on the effects of violent media, about 30 of which have been about video games. Most have found little to no connection, although some studies found a small, casual correlation between aggressive people and violent media.

Even if true, this does not necessarily mean violent media has created aggressive people. It is more likely that aggressive people are attracted to violent media. Blaming violent media would be like going to the opera, noticing that most people there are rich, and concluding that opera makes people rich. (Classical opera, by the way, is chock full of lust, incest, murder, suicide, and revenge.)

In an analysis of the risk factors of youth violence by the Surgeon General of the United States of America, violent media is categorized as “Small Effect Size.” In fact, there are 27 risk factors rated higher than exposure to violent media, like socioeconomic status, academic failure, poor parent-child relations, weak social ties, and being male. Quick! Ban all the males!

So is the media and the government flat out lying to us? Yes, and they have been doing so for years. As touched on in the rabble-rousing films of Michael Moore, fear sells. It’s how you turn terrible tragedies like Columbine and the WTC Attack into election votes and must-see TV.

The media in particular loves to bash video games, making sure to point out any time there’s an Xbox within 50 yards of a crime. This is because games are the new competition - every hour you spend interacting with a game is one hour less spent drooling in front of their fear-mongering programming.

And it's working. Sparked by Columbine, mainstream media routinely paints a picture of gamers as odd shut-ins dangerously close to the precipice of violent behavior, and almost unerringly misconstrue the games themselves without taking the time to fact check, as is the case in the very first sentence of this CBS News report. Points for killing cops in GTA? Do games still have points?

Gaming is also a new medium, one that has recently become wildly successful. Young people play them and old folks don’t understand, so they must be bad. Don’t forget that in the 1950’s, rock and roll was linked to youth violence in the same way. The hedonistic, tribal rhythms were going to turn America’s youth into a bunch of violent maniacs. Rock and roll was banned and censored all over the country. A bill was even put before Congress in 1955 to ban rock and roll altogether.

Something exactly like what is happening now. Sorry guys, I don’t care what people say, rock and roll is here to stay.

Let me be perfectly clear: Grand Theft Auto is a best-selling adult game that should not be played by 12 year-olds. That’s why it’s rated “M” and you have to be 17 to buy it. However, most games are not like GTA. In 2004, 54% of games were rated “E” for Everyone, 33% were rated “T” for Teen, and only 12% were rated “M” for Mature. The vast majority of the best-selling titles every year are not rated “M.” Compare that to the 55% of movies rated “R” and only 8% rated “G.” The ESRB might not get it right all the time, but who does? (Sources: the ESRB and the NPD Group).

And after all, there’s no problem with R-rated movies or mature rap lyrics or violent video games, because there is no problem with youth violence. The most disgusting thing to me is that some truly horrible high-school tragedies are being exploited by the media, and somehow, I'm part of the problem.

The truth is that these are the most non-violent kids we have ever had, and they all own Playstations. The government is so desperate to find some youth crime to crack down on that they’re strip-searching kids for 10 bucks while locking up 11 year-old girls for throwing rocks and eating french fries. The most peaceful generation of Americans in recorded history is being shoved through metal detectors, having their civil rights violated on a daily basis, are the victims of unreasonable search and seizure, and are treated with constant suspicion.

All because of a media lie. If nothing else can incite them to violence, maybe that will.

I love you.

Why did you kill them? Because the media is bull and has turned everything else to bull!

Nice nicely researched. Ha i read in readers digest about something with a boy killed some cops after playing alot of GTA and i was like thats BS it's not the games that make people kill it's the poepel who make them kill. It's their decsion to kill not a games.

We actually had a debate about this in school last year. This article would have been an interesting addition. I will say that the result of the debate was that violent video games(etc) do not equal violence in real life. Actually most in my class use violent video games to VENT thier anger.. thus dismantling a possible violent situation. Thus in the overall conclusion it was said that depending on the person violent video games may increase violence or decrease violence but that on most the affect is neglidiable(this was finally agread upon cause not everyone aggreed that it would decrease violence in most).

Yeah, ive been reading up on this for a good portion of the last few days, so I know all about this. A good website is www.stopstopkill.com to get good facts and funny letters about Jack Thompson.

Oh well, If I killed someone I would probably try to pin it on video games as well…

If I ever commited a crime, of any sort, I'm quite certain the media would blame it on the huge amounts of videogames I play.

It's quite interesting to see when the crime rate fell, and how sharply. I'm smarter than to draw a correlation = causation fallacy, but I would like to know about anything else which occurred around 1993 which may have drasiticaly affected youth crime?

Excellent piece by the way.

Yeah, excellent piece. Nice to see people researching to support their points in this thread for once.

WEll of course someone decided to do their research and called the media out on its BS. Good show Good Show.

HURRAY! for smart people.

Although I don’t see much chance that this will turn into a grade scale debate here. We are all video game fanatics and are probably rather partial towards the “video games don’t do jack to us” side of the argument…

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ZeZipster

I love you.

---

Me too!

Theres probably some effect of Video Games to people, especially those that take things into reality and have some issues that they need to deal with. If that is so then Video games are a factor to irrational behavior. However to most normal people Video Games should have nominal effect on them.

someone should email this to one of the nazis at MAVAV (http://www.mavav.org/)

Quote:

---

It's quite interesting to see when the crime rate fell, and how sharply. I'm smarter than to draw a correlation = causation fallacy, but I would like to know about anything else which occurred around 1993 which may have drasiticaly affected youth crime?

---

The beauty of this piece is it doesn't need to go under the direct correllation/causality method. The point is that, unlike many people are claiming, violent crimes have NOT risen since the introduction of video games. It's not directly saying that video games are the reason for the decline (although it does suggest it as a possibility), but merely that they, or anything else, aren't causing an increase in crime.

If anyone is really interested in this topic, I highly suggest reading Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things. It's the book that inspired the movie Bowling for Columbine, which draws much of the same conclusions as the writer of this article.

I watched plenty of tv, and I turned out tv ;_;

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ThroneofDravaris

Although I don’t see much chance that this will turn into a grade scale debate here. We are all video game fanatics and are probably rather partial towards the “video games don’t do jack to us” side of the argument…

---

I wouldn't say that it has no effect. I would say that we're all of the mind that videogames should be investigated and that they probably do have some effect on impressionable minds. But we're also of the opinion that those of us old enough to make the decisions ourselves have that right, and no MAVAV or Jack Thompson is going to take it away from us.

*saves article*

What I don't get is how easily people fall for the ol' correlation=causation bull. Any first-week statistics student could tear that "evidence" to shreds in seconds, so why haven't a bunch of college-educated adults in charge of the country done so? And then I remember that this is the same Congress that discussed changing "french fries" to "freedom fries" and my faith in humanity drops from "very low" to "hopelessly abyssmal."

THANK YOU!!! I for one am tired of this whole "video games are EVIL" crap. And the "epidemic of youth violence" crap. And the "protect the children from the evils of entertainment " crap. but thats just me. As far as kids playing GTA goes, it is rated M. Parental responsibility, people.

Quote:

---

And then I remember that this is the same Congress that discussed changing "french fries" to "freedom fries" and my faith in humanity drops from "very low" to "hopelessly abyssmal."

---

Couldn't have put it better myself. :D

Ok, I'm an old guy of 38 so I'm gonna add my 2 cents here. When I was really young in the 60's comic books were blamed for teen violence. In the 70's Evil Kenivel was blamed for lots of kids having bicycle accidents and these morons said that the rock group KISS stood for "Knight's in Satan Service." In the 80's my dad was convinced Judas Priest and Van Halan were corrupting America's youth. Early 90's when I bought my Nintendo, people were thinking the Japanese had a stranglehold on America. Mid 90's people were outraged about Mortal Combat. Tell me, how many people talk about Mortal Combat now a days? Now, it's my favorite game, San Andreas. Give it time, people will forget about it and the politicians will pick a new target for votes. Just an old guys view on the subject :)

Yeah, I read this awhile ago. Props to the people who put it together.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by I'm my own MILF

I would like to know about anything else which occurred around 1993 which may have drasiticaly affected youth crime?

Excellent piece by the way.

---

Directly, there isn't anything that applies specifically, but that is about the end of baby-boomers as parents. The parents who were themselves part of 8-child households are giving way to parents that have only 2 or 3 siblings. Smaller family groups mean higher quality parenting.

What interests me about these statistics is the continually growing surge of "heavy" drugs in the last decade or so, especially amongst school-agers. Marijuana is no longer a gateway drug... it's slid so far down the scale as to fall off the radar... now people go strait from underaged smoking to abusing cocain and heroin products. You'd think that the undebated relationship between violence and drug abuse should be raising the rate of violence.

Oh well, you certainly have proven that video games aren't hurting our youth. Especially if general violence has dropped so rapidly as to counter and reverse the raise that inevitably comes from drug related activities. That's almost insane.

^_^ Good points Junkie, and excellent find on this article Edward.

Soccer moms should play video games
<_<
>_>

A lot of attention to video games in a social way. They're really quite meaningless. The biggest harm they cause is time and money wasted.

As far as Grand Theft Auto series. The only bad thing about it is that it sucks, royally. People that truly rave about those games as great are simpletons. It's a simpleton fantasy to go on a violent rampage against random people. It's a pissant thug fantasy, small potatoes. I'd rather have it on those who I know deserve it ;)

It's funny, I just ad a converstation with my friend along the same lines as this with my friend at the local park. I have known for so long that video games had very little to do with violence today. For one thing, anyone who's going to go around shooting people because they played San Andreas was probably already screwed up and should never have been given the game in the first place. An 18 year old should have enough sense by that point not to shoot someone because they saw it in a video game unless there completely nuts, and anyone under that age shouldn't have it anyway, and it's the parent's fault they've obtained it. Beside, one reason I think the rate of killing has gone down is because now you don't need to do something illegal and wrong when we can just shoot the hell out of someone in a video game. Seriously though, you are possibly the greatest person ALIVE for this. I'll march up to Washington with this article, see what they think. I'll probably get shot. How much you wanna bet they'll say on the new that I went in with a machine guns and a rocket launcher because I've been playing Halo 2 to much?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TurkSlayer

How much you wanna bet they'll say on the new that I went in with a machine guns and a rocket launcher because I've been playing Halo 2 to much?

---

Why not go in with a huge sword and blame Final Fantasy 7 for it? Might just get enough publicity for them to bump up translating the damned movie. Maybe create more related merchandise. Perhaps with a remake that gets a more imaginative name! Then again, if they use something lame like they did with "Dawn of Souls".... perhaps they should just stick with the old names.

Anyone with brains has always known this.

If that type of stuff (searching, stupid reasons to arrest and school metal detecting) ever comes to the UK I'd just say no, this will just trigger more violence don't you think so?

people trying to blame video games is yet another attempt to remove responsibility for crime from the responsible perpetrator. Does the perpetrator believe the things said in court about how daddy never took him fishing and mummy smacked his bum leading directly to his stealing a car? no. just pretends to so that he won't go to jail for as long.

and the media perpetrates these things so that people feel bad when the guilty are punished.

unrelated note: I see some causal statements here. be careful all, nothing has been proven. Only very strong support given to disprove a paradigm.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ZeZipster

I love you.

---

The media lies to us too much......I am glad you realize this.....They pick on one little paste time of ours,& use loose ideas to warp us.....

you know what, someone from a schools down the road was sufficated with a plastic sainsburys bag. He lived, it was only a joke by school kids. Stuff like that I saw on Manhunt, could they be related, maybe, so dont go slagging the Media, for all you know, they could be right.

I would like to say that bad parenting and growing up with crooked morals, or no morals at all causes more violence than video games. kthx.

Bipper

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dreddz

you know what, someone from a schools down the road was sufficated with a plastic sainsburys bag. He lived, it was only a joke by school kids. Stuff like that I saw on Manhunt, could they be related, maybe, so dont go slagging the Media, for all you know, they could be right.

---

They shouldn't have had a copy of Manhunt though. I don't care if it brainwashes kids in ten seconds flat into murder, the fact is someone circumvented the ratings in some way.

Oh, and last I checked, it wasn't Rockstar who first discovered you can't breathe through plastic.

I wrote a term paper on this topic last year. Though I focused more on the psychological studies that have been going on since Astroid and Pac Man. Out of the 12 studies I researched, only 3 concluded that videogames increased agression, 7 said it decreased agression, 2 yeiled no results. GTA actually makes us more passive! :eek:

the article was brilliant !

do you think if all the kids just one day put down there ps/xbox controllers and started reading, they would start blaiming those, have you read macbeth ? suicide, murder... quick lets all ban books ! or what about movies or tv, quick lets just ban everything, and sit in a room by ourselves and do nothing, then lets see who goes crazy...

i think most teen crimes are caused through being stupid, and having nothing to do, as was the case of my stupid friend, who is, indeed very stupid, he was bored one day so he dicided to steal a car, he broke into the house (well they left ther door open), took the keys and some cash, and got into the car. problem was, he's 16 and cant drive, so as he reversed out of the driveway, he hit sraight into a brick wall... and then a lamp post, he was soon after arrested, he dose not own a copy of GTA:SA, i bet if he did he woudnt have done this, he woud have been in playing it, why bother going through all the effort of stealing a car (with the possibility of getting caught) when you can do it in a game by pressing a few buttons ?

i also checked MAVAV webste, and i think its the most rediculus, pile of bias crap i have ever read, the funny thing was, when i dicded to check out some of there ammusingly titled articles such as "splinter cell-how-to-kill" they were ALL unavailable due to "editing" i asume this is beacouse there crap and full of lies, iv got an idea lets start our own group GAMAVAV :Gamers Against Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence, any one ?

oh whilst also browsing there site i found this add :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...vand88/duh.jpg

hows that for irony ?

i will also be sending them an interlectually Email on how i think there full of crap very soon, i encourage you to do the same (however this email wont be full of errors like this post, its 7am and i havnt been to sleep yet)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ultima88

oh whilst also browsing there site i found this add :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...vand88/duh.jpg

hows that for irony ?

---

Google ads go by what's in page content, and obviously a PS2 was mentioned somewhere.

yeh but its still ironic

I recently heard some journalist speak out on the issue on a show. He said most of the political figures we see today making such a big deal out of violence in videogames are democrats trying to gain an edge on republicans on the "family values" issue ( which is a stupid ambiguous notion that appeals to american voters ) anyway this explanation sounds about right to me. Democrats have more or less been getting their clocks cleaned on crap like that and I think this just could be one of the ways they're trying to gain more credibility. In addition, ive just never been able to understand what the fuss is about, considering anyone who isn't a complete moron would understand that content in videogames is no more influencing than our cable tv shows or movies so I can atleast rest easy this way thinking our politicians are not this dumb albeit just a little deceitful, and hey im comfortable with that.

whats even more depressing is seeing intellegent individuals such as ourselves wasting our precious gaming time on discussing this asinine 'issue'. You see, once the media gets a hold of this its presented to us in a way as if its the next 'hot' issue in america and then we buy into it and suddenly we're producing charts and graphs and the like when I think its a pretty common sense answer to begin with. Just my opinion.

actually, violent video games are making us less physiccally aggressive and more passive agressive.

its a lovely thing really.


half the people sueing whom where are the ones supplying there kids with the games there not of legal age to play yet (ie. M15+ etc etc), they are just adults covering up the facts that its the arguments/abuse they convey around there children that make them violent.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shadow8017

I recently heard some journalist speak out on the issue on a show. He said most of the political figures we see today making such a big deal out of violence in videogames are democrats trying to gain an edge on republicans on the "family values" issue ( which is a stupid ambiguous notion that appeals to american voters ) anyway this explanation sounds about right to me. Democrats have more or less been getting their clocks cleaned on crap like that and I think this just could be one of the ways they're trying to gain more credibility. In addition, ive just never been able to understand what the fuss is about, considering anyone who isn't a complete moron would understand that content in videogames is no more influencing than our cable tv shows or movies so I can atleast rest easy this way thinking our politicians are not this dumb albeit just a little deceitful, and hey im comfortable with that.

---

I know what you mean... here in Israel when the goverment removed the people from Gaza, there would be poloticians going there making it look like they really care aboute the people, and not the upcoming elections that we are gonna have in january.

Alot of the "parents" that are probably reading all this bull that games make people, children and students hurt, kill or whatever are only blaming it on games because they can't come to think of it that they might have done something wrong with there kids. So they go to the first option that they have.

Oh man, come on. Be a little more original. If I see another nerdy thought trying to make video games out to be some thing relevant in the public's mind, I'll just, you know, do something bad, metaphorically.

Only bad soccer moms ever made an consciously legitimate issue out of video games as a major concern. The rest were just thieves trying to get money with lawsuits. The reasons why Americans and their dung-stupid spawn are in such disarray are right in front of everyone's faces. But everyone sees that as celestially inevitable, so they try to scratch up a quick fix. And if you ask me, vgames and other entertainment here take a backseat to trite words with no meaning, like self-esteem, parenting, and other such dumpster filler. That's what they all think needs to be "fixed". What's getting in the way of this things? "Uh, well who knows". You gotta psychoalalize kids, that's how. No morons. It comes straight from the adults. The whole culture rewards mediocrity and the aggressive persecution of strangers to one's own cause. Intended or not, dirt stupid kids absorb the message of encouragement to harass deviants, misfits, and anyone that doesn't match the criteria of a strict social structure if they can manage it. Teaching discipline, boudaries and consideration for others is nowhere near the priority in the so-called "education". The priority is mom and dad getting a free daycare center. While unofficially, the status quo dictates to the kids that ability is the only boundary. The culture is the problem, not some entertainment company. That is why people don't want to listen and instead bring up these trite little reasons. It's a dead end, folks. So just enjoy it while it lasts. People are getting scummier by the minute.

Interesting note: Timothy McVeigh was never noted for playing video games, but was noted for being a decorated officer in the Gulf War. Maybe, and this is just a theory, that teaching kids that they can kill for the sake of nationalism is more likely to end in murder than telling them that they can kill for the sake of the 500 point bonus. Any thoughts?

Quote:

---

Interesting note: Timothy McVeigh was never noted for playing video games, but was noted for being a decorated officer in the Gulf War. Maybe, and this is just a theory, that teaching kids that they can kill for the sake of nationalism is more likely to end in murder than telling them that they can kill for the sake of the 500 point bonus. Any thoughts?

---

I agree, but try to get congress, (or the white house) to admit that war causes more death and violence than GTA. Common sense isn't.

There was actually just an article in my new Game Informer today about this. If I get ambitious I'll type it.

The strong, steady voice of overwhelming fact in the face of ignorant scapegoating. I thank thee sir.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RPJesus

Interesting note: Timothy McVeigh was never noted for playing video games, but was noted for being a decorated officer in the Gulf War. Maybe, and this is just a theory, that teaching kids that they can kill for the sake of nationalism is more likely to end in murder than telling them that they can kill for the sake of the 500 point bonus. Any thoughts?

---

Oh my god I think I love you.

A very good point, and remember that online game release by the ARMY not so long ago. IT sucked and it flopped, but it was still used as a device to get people to register and join. Pathetic.

Bipper