Nancy Pelosi: Video Games are Not the Reason for Violence in America (Huffington Post): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/10/nancy-pelosi-video-games_n_2657169.html
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Nancy Pelosi: Video Games are Not the Reason for Violence in America (Huffington Post): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/10/nancy-pelosi-video-games_n_2657169.html
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The simplest correct answer is that we are becoming less violent as we evolve. See Steven Pinker’s book: “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined”. That gives some context to what Nancy Pelosi says. Perhaps then we are left with four simple to ask questions (which are difficult to answer): 1. Do watching video games cause violence? 2. What else causes violence? 3. If video games do cause violence, what do we do about them? 4. Don’t we then (here is that double-standards thing again) have to do equivalent things to the other factors that cause violence?
If we ever arrive at question 4 all sorts of interesting things could get thrown in including high school sports, economic & educational factors, military service etc.
jon
Excellent questions, Jon. The New York Times recently echoed similar thoughts in an article that included this interesting insight:
“The proliferation of violent video games has not coincided with spikes in youth violent crime. The number of violent youth offenders fell by more than half between 1994 and 2010, to 224 per 100,000 population, according to government statistics, while video game sales have more than doubled since 1996.”
Of course, the drop in violent youth offenders in that time period could be the result of measurement issues — has the government’s definition of “violent youth offender” changed in that time, for example? — or other statistical factors. Still, it makes an interesting counterpoint to the “video games cause violence” talking point.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/science/studying-the-effects-of-playing-violent-video-games.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&