Watching the news is like a rollercoaster, shifting between many twists and turns at unexpecting moments. While most people hope for a safe ride, accidents can occur and cause outrage. Similarly, the news can portray the usual weather for the evening or violent tragedies like shootings, completely catching everyone off-guard and fearful of what may come next. It’s especially scary knowing most of these criminals happen to be young. Many parents believe that video games are to blame for this violent behavior in teens and young adults. As a result, a lot of parents lay strict control over their children’s video game catalog. Should these parents worry about violent video games or is this only a misconception hiding the true issue?

To truly grasp the issue at hand, understanding the terminology would help build boundaries as to what this does and doesn’t include. Video games are electronic games in which players control images on a video screen, and violence is used to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. If video games cause an increase in juvenile and criminal offenses through significant acts of violence, then parents would have the right to be worried and concerned for their children.

What do the statistics say?

For starters, according to the US Department of Justice, in 2019, juvenile arrests for violent crimes had declined by 50% since 2006, while simultaneously with this, a sales record was hit in March 2020 with Americans spending $5.6 billion on video game hardware, accessories, and other assorted content. This showed a 204% increase in total U.S. video game hardware and software sales from 1994 to 2014, reaching $13.1 billion in 2014. Meanwhile, other sources such as the National Center for Juvenile Justice showed violent crime rates continuing to decrease by 37%, including murders by juveniles falling 76%. Many could argue video games prevent juvenile violence alone simply because of the rising popularity of video games and their accessories within the same time frame. This may explain why children, especially boys, play video games as a means of managing their emotions. It is used as an outlet, rather than letting emotions out on what’s around them. The Journal of Adolescent Health says the majority of boys (61.9%) play video games to relax and have fun, almost half (47.8%) use video games as a means of forgetting their issues, and a smaller portion (45.4%) releases their anger through video games. Instead of violent training camps for children, video games seem to act as a simulation for relieving stress. Video games are substitutes for violence in the real world because it builds rationality and morality within their players without real-world consequences to understand the full effect of what a violent act has on the world and its people. Because of violent video games, greater numbers of people are becoming aware of these violent actions and are beginning to understand the costs of committing a violent act, leading them to be cautious and disinterested in replicating the violence in real life.

Do criminals have any correlation to video games?

While it may be easy to pin the blame of violence on video games because of their real-life atmosphere, multiple reports have shown how the majority of attackers show a lack of interest in video games entirely.  A detailed report from the US Secret Service and US Department of Education found of the 41 attackers studied, only five people have admitted their liking for video games. Some may say the more a country spends on video games, the more violence will occur. However, Washington Post writer Max Fisher studied the 10 largest countries in video game markets and found no correlation between playing video games and gun-related killings. Even though U.S. gun violence is high, the nine other countries with the highest video game usage have some of the lowest violent crime rates, especially when eight of those countries spend more per capita on video games than the United States. Because of the recent uprising in technology and gaming, violent video games will become more realistic and attract a wider audience, increasing sales and decreasing violent acts within the world. If violent video games were an issue, then the entire world should be affected by it. While gun violence may be exceptionally high in the United States, other countries follow an expected outcome of low crime rates and violence. This shows us that in the U.S., these acts of violence have different causes. 

If not violence, do video games cause aggression?

While everything violent is aggressive, not everything aggressive is violent. For example, getting frustrated, yelling, talking back, and arguing are all aggressive behaviors, but they aren’t violent. Since many violent video games reward their players for committing violent acts, these players may grow more desensitized or less emotional about hurting others, motivating these players to cause frequent aggressive bursts like the 60% of middle school boys and 40% of middle school girls who played at least one Mature-rated (M-rated) game, compared to the 39% of boys and 14% of girls who did not play M-rated games found from health and behavior researcher Cheryl K. Olsen. Ultimately, studies have shown aggressive behavior increasing when playing violent video games while not causing its players to commit violent acts, however, only the very rare outliers may grow into replicating major violence outside the game. While aggression can be scary and negative towards others, is it another reason to limit violent video games?

Should we be afraid of video games?

Although video game studies haven’t shown any true statistics of an increase in major violence, video games are shown to cause an increase in aggressive behavior which may be concerning for players. Aggressive behavior is concerning because it may lead to the injury of others, bullying, and even threats. Healthcare for both physical and mental harm may become dire and cause greater issues of money insecurity or the rise of mental illnesses like depression. Overall, violent video games shouldn’t be played excessively, but shouldn’t be taken as seriously as the media portrays it should. If parents begin receiving reports of aggressive behavior from school, parents should be skeptical of what their children are playing. The popularity of violent video games isn’t the cause of major acts of violence committed, but the many smaller problems like health, money and overall well-being can be, which builds on the daily lives of millions.