Following the shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, , lawmakers started to point to one factor that could have contributed to shootings: violent video games.
Here鈥檚 the problem: They don鈥檛.
What Research Says
Andrew Przybylski is a professor of psychology at the University of Oxford and is the Director of Research for the Oxford Internet Institute. He and Dr. Netta Weinstein whether violent video games were associated with aggressive behavior in adolescents.
鈥淲e found a whole lot of nothing,鈥� Przybylski said. 鈥淏asically, we found that having information about the kinds of video games people played, how violent they were, how much time they spent on them, there was no linear connection.鈥�
Przybylski surveyed over a 1,000 British teens aged 14 and 15 on their gaming habits and asked their parents to evaluate their behavior.
鈥淲e found pretty conclusive evidence that, among at least British teens, there is no connection between violent video game play and violent aggression,鈥� he said.
Gamers In The U.S. vs. Worldwide
But that鈥檚 the U.K. Aren鈥檛 American teens different?
Even if a person were to argue that a study of British teens can鈥檛 be applied to a study of American teens, Przybylski says the evidence still sticks. He points out that teens are playing the same games all over the world.
鈥淵ou will find that young people in Germany, in the United Kingdom, in Japan, they鈥檙e all playing the same video games that young people are playing in the U.S.,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut we don鈥檛 have, here in the U.K., mass shootings and tragedies like this.鈥�
Instead, there is research showing that factors such as or play a role in mass shooting and suicide rates.
People who have played video games, especially parents who have played video games with their children, are less likely to believe that video games have positive or negative effects to the people who play them, says Przybylski.
Kelly Sikkema / Upslash
The Source Of The Stigma
Part of the problem is that, , it鈥檚 commonly repeated. On Sunday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was on Fox News鈥� Sunday Morning Futures in the wake of the shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.
鈥淭he idea of these video games, they dehumanize individuals to have a game out of shooting individuals and others,鈥� McCarthy said. 鈥淚鈥檝e always felt that is a problem for future generations and others.鈥�
And in on Monday morning about the shootings, President Donald Trump talked about some solutions to combat gun violence.
鈥淲e must stop the glorification of violence in our society,鈥� he said. 鈥淭his includes the gruesome and grisly video games that are now commonplace.鈥�
Andrew Przybylski has also against video games.
He found that people who have never played video games before are more likely to have biases about them and unrealistic expectations about them.
鈥淵ou have a large slice, [of] mostly older Americans, who don鈥檛 have experience with games directly,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey might think Fortnite is violent or that people who play Mario are more likely to be aggressive towards turtles. But once you get the hands-on experience, you see that this is a pretty silly idea.鈥�
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