These meta-analyses examined both correlational and experimental studies across several cultures, including only methodologically sound studies. The inclusion of experimental studies is important: It means studies have shown that violent video games actually cause aggression. In correlational studies – those that examine violent media consumption and aggression outside the lab – it could be that aggressive kids want to play aggressive games, or that an outside factor such as family background causes both. But an experiment randomly assigns participants to play a violent vs. a non-violent video game, and then measures aggression.

These studies find that playing violent video games does, indeed, cause aggression. The effect is a correlation of about r = .20, considered a small to medium effect in psychology. But even a small to medium effect at the average causes a doubling or tripling of the number of people who are highly aggressive after playing a violent game.

If a large meta-analysis found that kids who eat candy were more likely to hit other kids – with a doubling or tripling in the number who hit really hard — few people would have a problem saying kids shouldn’t eat candy. Yet because many people enjoy playing video games, they are reluctant to take action to keep people from playing these games – even if it leads to aggression or violence.

Right.  Just like how you never see someone bring a baby to a goddamn midnight movie.  I mean, that sucks for me, but I am 100% positive that a 3-hour movie about troll men of the woods that begins at midnight is a terrible environment for a baby.

It makes sense that the video game industry would not want to believe that their product leads to aggression and violence in real life. But it’s infuritating to see fellow researchers making this claim while cherry-picking which studies they mention. Science is best when it relies not on individual studies but on the preponderance of the evidence. The preponderance of the evidence here is clear, and suggesting otherwise does a disservice to the field and to the public.

You’re right.  You definitely have a handle on when science is best.  And it was during the era when we all dreamed of sharing a plate of fries at the Peach Pit.

Some point out that violent crime has declined over the last twenty years as video games have become more vivid and violent. However, many other powerful factors influence the crime rate, from demographics to changes in policing to drug wars. So this observation tells us very little about the effect of violent video games on behavior.

True!  I think we’re on the same page there.  And here’s my problem with attacking violent video games:  You are wasting time.  If we get to a society where violent video games appear to be a primary, secondary, even tertiary cause of aggression as opposed to money, interpersonal relationships, and suffered trauma, then at that point I think it would behoove use to greenlight an investigation into video game violence.  But when we attack media, we’re basically starting at the very bottom of the list and moving up.

We’re still arguing over whether this is even a potential factor.  Nobody is arguing whether or not there was an emotionally damaged person and whether or not he had a gun.

To put it simply, which kid would you rather have in school with your kid:

Kid A (a child, not the album) who has great and appropriately-involved parents who really are on the lookout for their child’s best interest, and who also let him play violent video games.

Kid B (also a child, not a lazily-named sequel to Kid A) who has no parental structure at home but is sternly forbidden from playing violent video games.

That’s the thing.  We’re all ready to point at violent video games, and I think it’s because it’s easy to see the industry as a bunch of adults preying on the baser thoughts of children to make millions.  What’s harder to do is say that when mommy and daddy don’t love each other, they shouldn’t have a kid.  And to talk about guns is to talk about something many consider one of their most important rights (although I maintain that the constitution was one of those “in no particular order” things).  Video games are an easy target because we can see the creators as malicious, it doesn’t force many of us to look in the mirror, and because the people who make our laws have, for the most part, no concept of the modern gaming landscape.

No, taking away violent video games would not end mass shootings. But the best evidence available suggests that it would reduce real-life aggression. Like all research, these studies are based on averages — not everyone who plays violent games will become more aggressive. But some will.

Ah, okay.  This is the part I have a big problem with.  The evidence you provided does suggest that real-life aggression might be reduced by playing fewer violent video games.  But what I failed to see was the link between video-game-induced aggression and actual violent action.  In fact, aggression seemed to be measured as an increase in short term cognitive aggression, a change in affect, and a change in blood pressure and heart rate.  Changes that I would think we would see during any athletic event, for example.  And I haven’t heard a lot of outcry saying that we should stop people from doing bench presses.

Whether the rights of the many should be restricted for the actions of a few is a debatable point. I will leave it to politicians and others to debate exactly what action should be taken; as a psychology researcher, I can only point out the strengths and weaknesses of the evidence. Here, the evidence is very strong. Don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise.

And here we’re comparing video games to guns, basically, and our complicated relationship with guns.  This, however, is not an apt comparison.  If the shooter had invented some sort of disc launcher, something like the pizza thrower on the Ninja Turtle tank I had as a kid, and used Xbox discs as projectiles, I suppose we’d be closer.  But in no way did a video game directly kill anyone.

A video game is a piece of programming, and a piece of art.  You can argue all day, but the bottom line is that, in my opinion, drawing a figure is art.  You might think it’s cheap, but it’s art nonetheless.  Each game is the result of drawing, writing, and countless other arts.

I feel that we have a right to art so long as that art is not created for the purpose of directly harming anyone.  We have a right to create and consume it.

I talk about this all the time, but take Fight Club.  This was not something written to make people think of fighting each other.  This was written because the author, Chuck Palahniuk, had his first manuscript rejected based on it being too disgusting and violent, so he decided to take an “I’ll show them” attitude and write the most violent and disgusting thing he could think of.  At it’s core, the story is about men trying to connect with each other in a post-fatherhood world.  It’s really unfortunate that so many young men read this piece as an endorsement of violence, but that’s the world we live in.

Should we not allow the next Fight Club on the basis that we fear people will misinterpret its message and do violence on each other?  Absolutely not.   Because nobody is qualified to make that prognostication.

That’s essentially what we’d be doing when we say we want to take the violence out of video games.  We’d be submitting ourselves to a censorship process that is inherently flawed and will serve only to limit artistic vision.

If you want to argue that video games make people briefly more aggressive, and that this aggressiveness could turn to violence, I’m willing to listen to that.  But rather than attacking the games, shouldn’t we be attacking the system of youth development that does not teach people how to deal with feelings of aggression?  Because believe me, you are going to feel them in your real life.  Seeing an ex-girlfriend out with someone new?  Having someone nearly kill you in traffic?  Getting a bad quarterly review at work?  There are so many things that cause us involuntary stress every day, and part of growing into a human is learning to deal with those things appropriately and in such a way that we recognize that though we might feel a certain way right now, we may feel differently even ten seconds from now, and almost definitely will ten days from now.

I guess I’m left feeling overall unimpressed with this scientific article.

What I mean is, it seems to me that every time there’s a tragedy, we look for an answer.  And ten years later we look back and feel like idiots, if we even remember the accusations. We are not learning our lesson, and the lesson is this:  The only way to stop these sorts of things from happening is to make a very large societal change that is likely to make a large number of people upset.  We can’t do it by putting explicit content labels on CD’s and Rated M on video game packaging.  We actually have to do some shit.

If we elect to continue on our current path, that’s fine.  But someone is going to fucking lose it every so often and do something insane.

That’s the last thing I wanted to say here.  What happened was the act of someone who was insane, and we spend an awful lot of time trying to figure out the mind of a very crazy person.  It’s a wasted effort.  If it’s hard to grasp, that’s because you have a somewhat rational mind.  Take it as a good sign and be comfortable with the fact that you’ll never understand the why.

We can’t make the world into Nerf because clumsy people will bump into the walls from time to time, and we can’t limit art because people who are ill-equipped to understand it might not process it the way we’d like them to.

We’re willing to defend certain things because we consider them necessities.  Every so often a kid gets in a dryer and is hurt or killed.  It just happens, but we don’t ban dryers because we need them.  Same with cars.  Same with the cords used to put up the blinds.

The real problem is that we don’t defend art the same way.  We don’t see it as something we need, whether it be as a consumer or creator.  But we do.  We need a lot more than just the things that we need.