In today’s edition of ‘Not Surprising News’, Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick has blamed Video Games and abortions for school shootings in the United States.
Unsurprisingly, Lt. Gov Patrick steers clear of blaming firearms and pulls some phoney statistics out to ‘prove’ how dangerous video games are.
According to Patrick;
The video games issue, we have got to address in this country. Based on all the research we have done, 97%, according to psychologists and psychiatrists … of teenagers view video games, and 85% of those video games are violent.
… And what are these games showing you how to do? Kill people. … The vast majority [of psychologists and psychiatrists] will tell you it leads them to become numb to violence, to have less empathy to their victims and be more aggressive.
Does that impact everyone who views them? No, but it obviously is part of the problem.
Lt. Gov Patrick doesn’t cite any research or evidence to support his claims, which is clearly because there isn’t any.
A recent study by the York University, published in January 2018, concluded, yet again, there is “no evidence to support the theory that video games make players more violent.”
According to Whitney DeCamp, an associate professor of sociology at Western Michigan University conducted a study and found that playing video games, no matter how violent could not and did not predict violent behaviour.
Christopher Ferguson, associate professor and co-chairman of the Department of Psychology at Stetson University goes a step further and believes video games may help relieve aggression.
Basically, by keeping young males busy with things they like you keep them off the streets and out of trouble,” he told CNN. Yet another study which looked at violent crimes perpetrated in the weeks after a violent video game is released found that societal violence actually decreased in those weeks.
It’s past time that this argument was put to bed for good.
