Violent video games don’t necessarily correlate to mass shootings

Question

Violent video games aren’t necessarily correlated with the acts of a mass shooting. I myself play video games that you could consider to be violent, and don’t have any intention now or ever to engage in a mass shooting. According to an article on CNN, ‘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.’ Also a study done by Western Michigan University professor Whitney DeCamp concluded that, ‘playing video games, no matter how graphic, did not predict violent behavior.’ The study used data from a 2008 Delaware School Survey, which included responses from over 6,000 eighth graders.

Answer 1

Yes, this claim is true. This is according to the Time article "No, Video Games Don’t Cause Mass Shootings. But The Conversation Shouldn’t End There" it states that there is no correlation between recent mass shootings being inspired by violent video games. However, toxic behavior and actions should still be monitored and rooted our because they may have a negative impact on kids.

https://time.com/5647659/no-video-games-dont-cause-mass-shootings-but-the-conversation-shouldnt-end-there/

Answer 2

According to Rong Shao and Dr. Yunqiang Wang, this statement is false. Although, they do admit that home environment plays a role into how this aggression manifests, they find that children's aggression is positively correlated with exposure to violent video games. It is worth noting, though, that this is based off of self-reported data.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00384/full

Answer 3

Claim: violent video games don't correlate to mass shootings

This claim is mostly true.

The CNN article states that, "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."

The information from CNN aligns with a review by the American Psychological Association (APA) in 2015. In the review they determined, "Violent video game play is linked to increased aggression in players but insufficient evidence exists about whether the link extends to criminal violence or delinquency"

While violent video games are linked to aggression there is not enough evidence of a link to criminal violence to correlation violent video games to mass shootings.

The review by the APA was conducted on research published between 2005 and 2013 including more than 150 reports published before 2009.

Answer 4

This claim is true. According to "The Argument That Violent Video Games Spur Mass Shooting Is Losing Steam" shows us that there are usually half-hearted attempts by politicians and other people to reiterate that violent video games cause mass shootings. It even stated that generally, media has little impact on mass shootings at all.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-06-17/the-argument-that-violent-video-games-spur-mass-shootings-is-losing-steam

Answer 5

Playing violent video games does not directly correlate with school shootings. According to the results of the Violence Project research, since 1992, only 26 of 136 mass shooters played violent video games. Among those 26, 22 of them also had some sort of mental illness or psychiatric disorder. In the article “Do video games contribute to mass shootings? What research, shooter profiles tell us”, Texas State journalism professor Tom Grimes who has a background in psychiatry and has researched the role of media and video games in violent behavior says, “Game playing can’t make well people sick. Would you shoot up an elementary school after playing a lot of videogames? The question and answer is that simple.” With this in mind, this would mean the relationship between violence and video games would be more of a causal link, rather than a direct correlation. 

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