Do Video Games REALLY Lead to Violence?
A new study as reported by The New York Times today has found that, though "playing the games can and does stir hostile urges and mildly aggressive behaviors" the good news -- I think -- is that it's not totally clear if that is the case. It's quite possible that those who like to play violent video games self-select themselves. In other words, as The Times noted, young people who tend towards violent tendencies just might be the ones most likely to play the bloodiest games. A psychologist quoted in the story, however, said that the violent behavior of people like Adam Lanza, the Newtown murderer, could only partly be attributed to video games. “None of these extreme acts, like a school shooting, occurs because of only one risk factor; there are many factors, including feeling socially isolated, being bullied, and so on,” Craig A. Anderson, a psychologist at Iowa State University, told The Times. A statistic I found very revealing was that "the proliferat...