10/20/2019 Video games unlikely to cause real-world violence, experts say - CNN

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Video games unlikely to cause real-world violence,
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experts say
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By Arman Azad, CNN
 Updated 5:30 PM ET, Mon August 5, 2019

Trump: Mental illness and hatred pull the trigger, not the gun 02:34

(CNN) — As mass shootings roil the nation, President Trump and top Republicans are citing video games as one
explanation for the bloodshed.

But experts say there is little evidence to link violent games to real-world violence.

"Games have only become more realistic. The players of games and violent games have only become more
diverse. And they're played all around the world now," said Andrew Przybylski, an associate professor at the
University of Oxford who studies digital media.

"But the only place where you see this kind of narrative still
hold any water, that games and violence are related to each
other, is in the United States."

That supposed connection has its roots in early research that

seemed to link violent games to aggression in players. A 2015
report from the American Psychological Association, for
example, found a "consistent relation between violent video
game use and increases in aggressive behavior, aggressive
cognitions and aggressive a ect."

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10/20/2019 Video games unlikely to cause real-world violence, experts say - CNN

Related
LIVE Article: Trump, McCarthy cite Though the report said there was insu cient evidence to link
that aggression to criminal violence or delinquency, its 
video games as a driver behind mass
Officials
shootingsare expected to implode the Hard Rock New Orleans hotel after two were killed in its
findings seemed to support a longstanding sense -- and fear -
partial collapse - that new technologies and on-screen gore could translate
into violence on the streets. But that conclusion, experts
argue, isn't backed by modern research. LIVE TV

New studies upend link to aggression

"The general trend here is that society has a concern about new technology, parents or policymakers get involved,
and maybe the researchers don't have much experience with the technology themselves, and so the first few
attempts to study the thing are pretty poorly done," Przybylski said.

As time has gone on, he said, "the evidence has become

pretty clear that, where there are correlations, it's probably
because of a third factor." For example, boys have historically
been more likely to play video games, and they also happen to
be more aggressive than girls on average, Przybylski said.

This year, he published a study of more than 1,000 British

adolescents that found no link between the time spent playing
violent video games and aggressive behavior. That's
consistent with other recent research showing little -- if any --
link between games and violence.

Researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Related Article: Fact check: Are violent published research in July that looked at meta-analyses of
video games connected to mass pre-existing studies. The team found that violent video games
shootings? may increase aggressive behavior, but "these e ects are
almost always quite small."

And aggression, Przybylski points out, doesn't mean

somebody will commit a mass shooting. "There's no doubt
when a game is really hard or very frustrating or you lose, you
get pissed o ." By making Tetris more di cult in the lab, for
example, his team was able to induce aggressive feelings.

"The question that you have to ask yourself is, do people go

out and do mass shootings after they rage-quit 'Call of Duty'?"
He doesn't think so -- and points out that most people don't
usually commit violent acts after losing a game of golf.

Related Article: Do video games lead to

violence?

Medical groups, and even the Supreme Court, weigh in

The American Psychological Association has yet to update its policy statement on video games and aggression,
and other groups, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, also warn against violent media.

Video games, the academy said in 2016, "should not use human or other living targets or award points for killing,
because this teaches children to associate pleasure and success with their ability to cause pain and su ering to
others." It found a "significant" link between violent media in general and aggressive thoughts and angry feelings.
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10/20/2019 Video games unlikely to cause real-world violence, experts say - CNN
But some research suggests that, instead of predisposing
LIVE 
young people toward violence, video games may in fact
Officials are expected to implode the Hard Rock
reduceNew Orleans
real-world hotel after
aggression, two
allowing weretokilled
people in their
channel its
partial collapse feelings into gaming consoles instead of other people.

In one 2016 study, researches analyzed crime data and found

LIVE TV
that general societal violence decreased in the weeks after
the release of popular video games.

Christopher Ferguson, an associate professor and co-

chairman of the Department of Psychology at Stetson
University, told CNN last year that "basically, by keeping young
males busy with things they like" -- whether it's playing sports,
Related Article: Teen gamers do better collecting stamps or playing first-person shooter video games
at math than social media stars, study -- "you keep them o the streets and out of trouble."
says
The Supreme Court has weighed in, too. In 2011, the justices
ruled in a 7-2 decision that video games are protected speech
under the First Amendment, an opinion that cited existing
research into aggression.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, said that

"psychological studies purporting to show a connection
between exposure to violent video games and harmful e ects
on children do not prove that such exposure causes minors to
act aggressively."

He added that "any demonstrated e ects are both small and

indistinguishable from e ects produced by other media."

Related Article: WHO to recognize

gaming disorder as mental health
condition in 2018

'What a shame' to blame video games, expert says

Though the court's opinion came eight years ago, current research supports it. A study published in July looked at
more than 3,000 youth in Singapore and took into account prior levels of aggression and impulse control. There
was no link between violent games and future aggression, researchers found.

A positive family environment, however, was a "protective

Get CNN Health's weekly factor" that reduced aggression and antisocial behaviors.
"Thus, public policies that aim toward strengthening families
newsletter as well as increase youth impulse control are likely to be more
productive than those that target video games," the study
Sign up here to get The Results Are In with said.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta every Tuesday from the
As for politicians railing against video games in the wake of
CNN Health team.
this weekend's mass shootings, Przybylski said, "what a
shame." That talk "cheapens a hobby pursued by half of
American adults," he said.

But above all, by blaming video games instead of digging deeper into the root causes of violence, "we reduce the
value of the political discourse on the topic, because we're looking for easy answers instead of facing hard truths."

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10/20/2019 Video games unlikely to cause real-world violence, experts say - CNN
CNN's
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Susan Scutti contributed to this report.
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Officials are expected to implode the Hard Rock New Orleans hotel after two were killed in its
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