According to a 2008 Pew Research Center study, 97 percent of 12-17 year olds have played video games. It's probably safe to say, considering the explosive growth of the gaming industry that number is only going up.
Among the ranks of gamers around the world is Anders Breivik. During his trial for murdering 77 people in Norway, he gave chilling accounts of how he used videogames to train for his mass murder.
For some reason, people are taking him seriously when he says this. The insane ramblings of a mass murderer are being used as a political tool against violent videogames.
While we're at it why don't we take his manifesto on an impending race war seriously? Maybe we should start listening to Charlie Manson, too.
Yet the issue of video games and violence is much older than the attacks by Breivik. After the Columbine shootings, it was discovered that the killers played the computer games Doom and Wolfenstein 3D. The Virginia Tech murderer was also reported to have played violent computer games, although evidence contradicts this.
It's amazing that this argument hasn't been settled already. Let's break down why video games and violence aren't connected, shall we?
The science isn't there to support the link. Some studies done at Texas A&M actually indicate that playing violent video games might decrease violent behavior. Although not conclusive, it does go to show that at the very least that there has yet to be credible scientific evidence supporting a link between violent behavior and videogames.
We should then look at the data. Without a doubt, if violent video games caused violence, there should be a correlation between juvenile violent crime and video game use.
Fortunately for our future society, just the opposite is true. In fact over the course of the past 17 years, while video games have come to drawn in more money per year than music or movies, violent and non-violent crime rates have both dropped sharply. Even among juveniles the trend rings true.
Certainly, it wouldn't be proper to attribute playing video games to the drop in violent crime. Nobody has done research to indicate such a claim. What this does indicate, however, is that the video games do not encourage violent crimes.
On another level, however, coverage of Breivik's video game playing is borderline offensive. It takes away from real reporting on the mind of the man, and what it's like to think like a killer.
The fact that he obsessed about a race war probably had much more to do with the mass murder, but the focus has been directed unfairly to video games in order to make a cheap headline.
Opposition will likely die off as the years roll by. Of course, there will be a dedicated few who clings to delusion that will keep arguing, but this has clearly become a generational argument that and as such won't last long.
For right now, however, it's obvious that gaming doesn't cause kids to go out and kill people. It takes a hell of a lot more than playing Grand Theft Auto on the weekends with your friends to create a murderer.
And if you're truly worried about it, then you don't have to let your 10-year-old play Modern Warfare. Problem solved!
