Video game ‘amoralists’ argue killing in gaming isn’t harmful since no living being is actually hurt. But when it comes to hurting virtual animals, we disagree.
A screenshot from survival videogame DayZ.
Bohemia Interactive
The Australian Classification Board has “refused classification” for at least four videogames in recent months. Such bans show the introduction of an R18+ classification was not a win for players.
Just like the memorials after a shooting, some myths are bound to appear.
AP Photo/John Locher
Mentally ill, white supremacist video game-playing men are pushing rates of mass homicide ever higher in the US? The real data is more nuanced than common misperceptions suggest.
The research doesn’t say what some lawmakers suggest every time there’s a mass shooting.
Fredrick Tendong/Unsplash
As a federal school safety commission searches for ways to lessen school violence, a psychology professor advises the commission that focusing on violence in entertainment media is a waste of time.
Playing violent video games doesn’t make kids more aggressive.
AP Photo/Paul Sakuma
Teaching fear and avoidance of technology may protect people from negative consequences. But it also prevents them from finding, and benefiting from, productive uses of new innovations.
Why not ask a parent to play a problem-solving video game with you?
Shutterstock/Alan Ingram
Two researchers interviewed military members and vets to see what role first-person shooters played in their lives – before, during and after their enlistments.
Victorians revelled in images and descriptions of murder and mutilation which would today be regarded as shocking.
One can’t accurately predict a rampage shooting based on exposure to violent video games or any other single factor.
ScreenShots of Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare/Brother Games screenshot
There is agreement that violent video games lead to aggression. But one can’t accurately predict a rampage shooting based on exposure to violent video games or any other single factor.
Dire predictions on the future of children’s brains are shocking, not least because of how flimsy the evidence is to support these views.
zeitfaenger.at/Flickr
Baseless claims about the damage done to kids’ development create needless panic. And they distract from legitimate, evidence-based concerns with which parents need to engage.