Video games are not the anti-christ

It’s sick that in the wake of a huge tragedy like the shootings in Virginia there has to be a massive witch-hunt for the cultural scapegoat. We never look for real causes. We never looks for things that can actually be worked at, that can make a difference. We look for something to point our fingers at.

On Larry King, Dr. Phil McGraw said:

“The problem is we are programming these people as a society,” he said. “You cannot tell me — common sense tells you that if these kids are playing video games, where they’re on a mass killing spree in a video game, it’s glamorized on the big screen, it’s become part of the fiber of our society. You take that and mix it with a psychopath, a sociopath or someone suffering from mental illness and add in a dose of rage, the suggestibility is too high. And we’re going to have to start dealing with that.”

Video games cross the board in content. Of course violent video games exist, and many of them are fun. However, not only is there little evidence that the shooter even played video games, but video games are hardly the only—let along the most prevalent—form of violent imagery in our culture and environment.

If you think that you can survey the complex socio-economic landscape of the United States and pinpoint a subset of entertainment as an important causal force behind single events, then your basic statistics need some serious re-working.

I’m not idiotic enough to try to argue that playing a violent video game will never encourage violent behavior, because that’s obviously untrue. But I think that the fact that millions of reasonable people play violent video games without resorting to irrational brutal behavior in real life reveals a more important point: there is an untreated root cause in those cases where a video game can induce violence.

Or, put more succinctly: not everyone who plays counter-strike kills people, so I find it hard to believe that playing counter strike makes you kill people.

I think it’s far better to find out what ELSE might cause people to go on shooting rampages, and do something productive about it. Naturally you’ll never find a 100% across the board cause for every shooter ever, but you can find a stronger association than video games.

Lastly, association does NOT imply causation. Video games are popular in youth culture. Most of these shooters have been young. Chances are good they played video games. Chances are also good they drank water. Does water cause you to shoot people? Unlikely.

Bleh.

/disorganized rant