Marty is as confused as I am. Donald Trump is president (the reality tv star!?), and we are hearing, once again, about some sort of correlation between violent video games and real-world aggressive behavior in young people.
I can remember this conversation from way back in ancient times, when I was young. I had only anecdotal argument to go on then. Just because I’m jumping on this spiky-dinosaur-turtle’s head in this game, doesn’t make me want to jump on the heads of people I see on the street. Of course, I wasn’t using a gun in a Mario game, but my thoughts didn’t change with the dawn of the first-person shooter genre.
These conversations pop up nationally every few years, that is to say, it’s not necessarily a Trump-administration issue, and each time I feel like more and more intelligent people carefully explain where our collective knowledge is on the subject. To be sure, at this point in time it’s been studied quite a bit, and the general thinking is that while people prone to violence may in fact play violent video games, there’s no real causation to be found. Life can be a bit complicated. Humans can be a bit complex and chaotic. There are many things, environmental factors especially, that contribute to a person’s mental well-being. It’s something we all kind of know, but can be difficult to truly wrap our heads around. I’d like to see more focus given to these areas going forward, so that we may better understand that the highs and lows of people’s lives go well outside of “Call of Duty.”
— Mike Allen
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