Buckley (2006) argues that video games are not of the cause of addiction or violence, and that if they were, there would be a lot more pscyhotics in the world. He goes on to state that “Billions of people play video games, but only a handful have ever murdered someone.”, mentioning that the individual brings the issue to the activity, not the other way around.
In the wake of the Montreal College shootings in Canada, Williams (2006) writes about how the media and other sources are quick to assign the blame to video games, quoting Thompson (2006) “The massacre in Montreal is simply the latest tragedy of mass killing linked to violent virtual reality murder simulators.”. This is not the only instance of Thompson attacking the video game industry – Benedetti (2008) notes that after another instance of a student shooting, Thompson was quick to talk about how brain scans show that playing violent video games will cause you to mimic the behaviour of those games.
It is interesting, then, to see that “Violent crime rates have been generally stable since 2004 at their lowest levels after declining from 1984-2002.” according to the U.S Department of Justice (2009). Byrd (2007) concludes that “The debate still rages concerning the causal relationship between violent video games and violence in children; no definitive answer has been found.”
References
Buckley, T. 2006 “Where it's at” [Internet] http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/news.php?i=1131 [08-11-09]
Williams, C. 2006 “Canadian shootings linked to website, videogames – The Blame Game” [Internet] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/15/canadian_shooting/ [08-11-09]
Benedetti, W. 2008 “Playing the blame game - Why search our souls when video games make such an easy scapegoat?” [Internet] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23204875/ [08-11-09]
Department of Justice 2009 “Violent crime rates” [Internet] http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/viort.htm [08-11-09]
Byrd, P R. 2007 “IT.S ALL FUN AND GAMES UNTIL SOMEONE GETS HURT: THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PROPOSED VIDEO-GAME LEGISLATION ON REDUCING VIOLENCE IN CHILDREN” [Internet] http://www.houstonlawreview.org/archive/downloads/44-2_pdf/5_Byrd.pdf [08-11-09]
