The Truth About Violent Youth and Video Games

[Azure Chrysanthemum]

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.

[Miriel]

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.

[Calliope]

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

[Madame Adequate]

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.

[Raistlin]

*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."

[DarkLadyNyara]

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.

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.

[fantasyjunkie]

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

[Sephex]

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

[udsuna]

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.

[Vyk]

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

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

[cookieface]

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

[TurkSlayer]

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?

[udsuna]

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.

[nik0tine]

Anyone with brains has always known this.

[Shoden]

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?