Question

Playing violent video games in childhood is associated with mass school shootings

Answer 1

The statement "playing violent video games in childhood is associated with mass school shootings" is misleading, as there are no studies linking school shootings specifically with violent video game usage. The linked CNN fact-check article explains that the idea of violent video games causing school shootings is a distorted claim by people attempting to blame violent video games as the cause. These claims are based on research studies that have linked violent video games with aggressive behavior, but these studies have never singled out school shootings specifically. 

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/05/politics/violent-video-game-shooting-fact-check/index.html

One of the major sources for the claim that violent games cause aggression was the American Psychological Association, which made the claim in 2015 as described in the CNN article. The APA has since made a 2020 revision to their 2015 statements, stating that their research "should not be misinterpreted or misused by attributing violence, such as mass shootings, to violent video game use."

https://www.apa.org/about/policy/resolution-violent-video-games.pdf

Rating: Misleading / Likely Misinformation

There are a plethora of scientific studies that both support and deny the idea that violent video games are a cause of aggressive behavior. The topic is heavily contested, so it is hard to make any concrete claims on the matter. I think it is worth noting that Harvard Health has quoted the PEW Research Center's 2008 study on video game usage, which found that 97% of teens aged 12-17 played video games, and of those, 66% played games involving violence. Millions of teens play violent video games, making violent video-game-playing school shooters an extremely small minority. If violent video games caused shootings, there would likely be more shooters based on the amount of violent video game players.

Here are the Harvard Health and PEW Research articles. If you want to read more about the claims made by studies supporting both sides of this debate, the Harvard Health article goes into details.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/violent-video-games-and-young-people.

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2008/09/16/teens-video-games-and-civics/

Answer 2

Ph.D. Researchers from the American Psychological Association conducted a study by collecting 204,796 articles about 204 mass shootings in the US. The researchers found that  "video games were mentioned in 6.8 percent of the articles about school shootings with white perpetrators, compared with 0.5 percent for school shootings with African American perpetrators." In the end, they only found evidence linking violent games with some aggressive behavior, but no proof of lethal violence. Instead, they found that this claim could be connected to racial stereotypes. As I mentioned earlier, video games were more likely to be blamed when the perpetrator was white. These researchers found that this claim could be a sign of a larger racial issue in the system, but not a direct link with mass school shootings. 

Rating: Misleading / Likely Misinformation

Source: https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2019/09/video-games-school-shootings

Answer 3

This is an incredibly difficult thing to measure in terms of studying children playing violent games throughout childhood and whether they grow up to be school shooters. It's not a crazy assumption, but there isn't a clear link in terms of causation between violent video games and school shootings. According to a paper published in 2008 in the Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, data was collected on past mass school shooters in the United States, and while several of these future shooters did approve of/post their own hateful speech on the internet, this was different from seeing violence as a form of entertainment in a video game. All in all, the paper discusses a "moral panic" surrounding video games which has gripped the world on the topic of whether they are making us more violent/bad people. Ultimately, there is not any significant evidence to conclude a causal relationship between violent video games and mass school shootings.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jip.76 

Answer 4

This claim may not be true. There have been many mass shootings but a direct correlation between the shootings and playing violent video games has not been established. There have been much research on the matter, including the American Psychological Association, Villanova University, Harvard University, Stetson University and Texas State. As per Tom Grimes, journalism professor at Texas State, violent media, video games included, “does not make well people psychologically ill.” Research has, however found, that such claims may be attributed to inherent racism.

"People are more likely to blame violent video games as a cause of school shootings by white perpetrators than by African American perpetrators, possibly because of racial stereotypes that associate minorities with violent crime, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association."

Hence, this claim is misleading and may have been born out of racist tendencies.

Sources:

https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2019/09/video-games-school-shootings

https://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/media/features/schoolshootingsvideogames.html

https://www.kxan.com/stop-mass-shootings/do-video-games-violent-media-really-contribute-to-mass-shootings/

https://www.thenationshealth.org/content/49/8/1.2

Answer 5

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/05/politics/violent-video-game-shooting-fact-check/index.html

Answer 6

The statement that "Playing violent video games in childhood is associated with mass school shootings" is very misleading and probably not true. From the article "Fact check: Are violent video games connected to mass shootings?" by CNN journalist Ellie Kaufman, it clearly states that 

"Facts First: While some leading psychological organizations in the US say that children should not play violent video games because it may lead to aggressive behavior, there are no findings from research that demonstrate a direct connection between people playing violent video games and mass shootings."

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/05/politics/violent-video-game-shooting-fact-check/index.html

Also, in the article it also mentions how previously some leading psychological organizations in the US suggest that children should not play violent video games. However, such organizations have made changes to their previous statements such that “between violent video game use and both increases in aggressive behavior … and decreases in prosocial behavior, empathy, and moral engagement.”

https://www.apa.org/about/policy/resolution-violent-video-games.pdf

Answer 7

The claim "Playing violent video games in childhood is associated with mass school shootings" is a misleading message. According to CNN, 

there are no findings from research that demonstrate a direct connection between people playing violent video games and mass shootings

Also, according to this CNN report, the wrong relationship between violent game and shooting incident will distract people from real issue: gun safety laws, which mean the real reason for shooting is the law which need to be improved but not the game itself.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/05/politics/violent-video-game-shooting-fact-check/index.html

Answer 8

While violent video games can have and impact inn someone life’s doesn’t mean that is solely the reason it happens. This excuse of violent games leading to school shooting is biased. Since the only people that get to use that excuse tends to only be White perpetrators compared to  Black perpetrators. White perpetrators are always given outside excuses to make sense of their behaviors since in societies eyes they don't looks like the usual perpetrator. This quote came from Villanova University in their researching of More People Blame Video Games on School Shooting by White Perpertrator. “ new research and two different studies from Villanova University professors show that people are likely to erroneously blame violent video games for school shootings when the perpetrator was White than when the shooter was Black”. Violent can be a factor but it seems like the media and society is the one that gets to choose when and who uses that excuse. There is more warnings signs than just violent video games which people miss since they think it’s normal or just don't see it the warnings signs. 

https://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/media/features/schoolshootingsvideogames.html

Answer 9

The claim that violent video game usage is associated with mass school shootings is exaggerated, as stated in an article by Villanova. The facts of the article states, "They found video games were mentioned 8.5 times more often in school shootings when the perpetrators were White compared to when they were Black," in reference to a study performed by the American Psychological Association. Based on the information presented in the article, the claim that video games create school shooters is completely false, however, studies by the American Psychological Association prove that violent individuals gravitate towards more graphic activities, such as violent video games. In conclusion, the forum in which this topic was presented was a bit extreme, however, there is some overlap between violent video games and violent behavior, so I would consider this argument to be a bit misleading. 

https://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/media/features/schoolshootingsvideogames.html

Answer 10

Stating that playing violent video games in childhood is associated with mass school shootings is exaggerated and misleading. Not only is there no scientific evidence backing up this claim, but this is a hard thing to test. There are various factors in a persons life that could contribute to violence. Just because it may be correlated, does not mean that it causes school shootings. There was a study done by the Royal Society Open Science that used the scientific method, and they concluded that "The results provide confirmatory evidence that violent video game engagement, on balance, is not associated with observable variability in adolescents’ aggressive behaviour".

You can find the study here: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.171474

Outside of this very technical study, there is tons of more information available online discussing this claim, such as this article done by USAtoday: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2019/08/05/do-violent-video-games-really-drive-people-commit-mass-shootings/1924128001/