Video games causing violence.

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I have often heard it said that lots of violence can be blamed on video games. They say there wouldn't be all those mass shootings if it weren't for video games. No, video games aren't the problem. The craziness people have over buying guns is the problem.

You're right on the point that games don't cause violence. Neither do guns or buying them cause violence. Fnord once again nails it with the idea that it's a reverse victim blaming; I never saw it that way but that's really interesting.

The game "Doom" is pretty neat. I'm not a gamer but I've dropped in and watched friends playing it; it actually looked interesting. So I can see how the storyline of defending the world is great--it kind of matches a lot of wonderful old stories & myths, but is updated. Now a violent person would be drawn to play it for a different reason.

Same goes for guns; some people collect them, others defend their homes with them, some people like working on them (guns are incredibly simple to maintain; I have seen some over 150 years old that worked fine.) and then, you have criminals, and the criminal-sympathetic (I count that subculture of Thin Blue Line + Punisher skulls as crime-sympathetic) and they buy guns with the express intent of saving it in case they must shoot a person.

I like my guns, but I'm also a fairly shy reclusive guy who hates the idea of hurting someone & wouldn't join the military to fight the current wars. I don't play video games, but I don't have a television so what good would they do me.


Violence is a symptom of the evil hearts of some people.

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I remember back in the 1980s when mis-guided moralists seemed to blame everything on Dungeons & Dragons -- things like drug use, homosexuality, promiscuity, suicide, truancy, violence, and so forth. Of course, it also seemed that D&D was blamed on atheists, communists, and devil worshipers as well. It's a wonder how us D&D players had any fun at all!

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No, they don't, at least not any more than violent movies do. People who are somehow attracted to violence might get new ideas on how to do it from violent games and movies, but the ones who are going to be violent are going to do it with or without games.

Not long ago I watched a Reddit video about the most horrific acts of human torture performed in history, most of them from hundreds of years ago, and at the end the narrator in the video said, "Remember, video games cause violence. All of these incidents occurred immediately after Grand Theft Auto was released."

I had a good laugh at that bit if snarky humor.

In my childhood/ youth, TV was blamed for it. There was so much concern from some people about all the violence kids saw on TV and how it affected us. Obviously we all turned out nutcases (sarcasm)

TV was of course as much to blame as video games, Dungeons & Dragons, and for that matter, short skirts, that is not at all.

Here in the US our leaders are funded by the NRA which cares about the gun manufacturers. Our leaders also do not want to spend any money to address the real causes of violence which are things like income inequality & mental health issues. Plus our leaders are encouraging hatred of others. Video-games are an easy scapegoat to blame real life violence on.

No, it is the other way around. Violence causes the video games. The existence of violent video games and movies can be blamed on violence.

Take a pause from declaring that video games absolutely do cause or absolutely do not cause, and read these.
Right now I forget if both books do, or which one if only one, addresses how violent shooter games fit in to the multi-variable equation,
and they are buried in a stack in the other room and the endocrine disease and the neurological autoimmune disease are kicking my ass tonight so I'm not going to get up and go look to refresh my memory.

(also don't want to get up because Georgie cat is snuggling with his tail wrapped around my left wrist, which has been hurting)

They cover killing and the effects of doing killing as soldier, as law enforcement, as civilian, as criminal.

My brother played violent videogames when he was younger and watched violent movies growing up (he'd sneak behind my mum's back and watch them without her knowing). But he's never been violent in his life, and as an adult he's not at all violent or even aggressive in any way.

Video games doesn't cause violence.

The source of violence usually came from negative associations around parenting and socializing, not portrayals of violence.


I myself know that my own source of violence isn't coming from video games.
Video games brings me nostalgia, even brings me to happier places that would've prevented violence.
Not fantasies of retaliation or whatever nonsense people projects or assumes to be.

Violence is mostly born from hurt and hunger, especially when shown violence is the answer to quell said hurt and hunger...
And mix that with impulsivity and dysregulation, maybe some sadism -- those are the ingredients for violence.

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Most violence is caused by extreme and fringe ideologies.

Video games caused covid.

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