It is true that violent video games cause a few users to become more physically aggressive. We’re talking about what an international study that looked at more than 17,000 adolescents, ages 9-19, suggests from 2010 to 2017.
But, in general, the percentages are so low that the effect (if there is a causal link) would be the opposite: in countries where there is greater consumption of video games, people commit fewer crimes.
The American exception
Adam Lanza , who murdered 20 children and 6 adults in Sandy Hook , Connecticut, in 2014. The press reported that he had been playing Call of Duty 4 that morning, and six days later, a senator introduced a bill to investigate. the violence of video games.
What wasn’t said was that Lanza’s favorite video games were actually Super Mario Bros and Dance Dance Revolution , where the object of the game is to imitate dance moves in a nightclub.
As in their time with literature, theater, cinema or role-playing games, video games that recreate violence have been considered to increase violence. However, the opposite seems to be the case: they catalyze it .
The study consisted of exhaustively analyzing 24 studies from countries such as the United States, Canada, Germany and Japan in which fans of Grand Theft Auto , Call of Duty and Manhunt , for example, were more likely to show behaviors such as being sent to the office of the principal for fighting or hitting an unfamiliar member.
In the following table we see how video games and crime do not go hand in hand:
In the United States, many more people die, not because video games exist, but because firearms are legal and easy to obtain.
Christopher Ferguson , associate professor and co-chair of the Stetson University Department of Psychology, notes that more recent studies, employing generally better analytical methods, have failed to establish connections between virtual violence and actual violence. In fact, a 2016 study found evidence that violent games cause a modest reduction in crime .
You can delve into it, as well as the alleged violence caused by cinema and other forms of fiction, in the following video: