The Empirical Literature

The article by Simon Penny was just one side of the debate about video game violence that has been taking place in academic journals. Wikipedia has a short overview of the subject. That is only the tip of the iceberg on the subject, a Google scholar search of “violent video games” produces 5,130 results.

The part of the wikipedia article that sums it all up best is a quote from Henry Jenkins:

“According to federal crime statistics, the rate of juvenile violent crime in the United States is at a 30-year low. Researchers find that people serving time for violent crimes typically consume less media before committing their crimes than the average person in the general population. It’s true that young offenders who have committed school shootings in America have also been game players. But young people in general are more likely to be gamers — 90 percent of boys and 40 percent of girls play. The overwhelming majority of kids who play do NOT commit antisocial acts. According to a 2001 U.S. Surgeon General’s report, the strongest risk factors for school shootings centered on mental stability and the quality of home life, not media exposure. The moral panic over violent video games is doubly harmful. It has led adult authorities to be more suspicious and hostile to many kids who already feel cut off from the system. It also misdirects energy away from eliminating the actual causes of youth violence and allows problems to continue to fester.”

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