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Gaming Tuesday, February 26th 2013 at 8:30 am

Survey Finds Nearly 60% Of Americans See A Correlation Between Video Games And Violence

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File under ‘Oy, This Again’: a recent poll of more than 2,000 Americans found that nearly 3 in 5 people surveyed believed there was a correlation between violent video games and actual violence. So for those of you wondering “Can we stop talking about this idiotic, imaginary, facile, and astonishingly unproductive link between digital violence and actual violence and maybe start looking at addressing some of the, I don’t know, real issues?” the answer is, sadly, no. Or at least not anytime soon.

According to a the results of a Harris Interactive poll of 2,278 American adults, fully 58% saw a link between violent video games and people committing actual acts of violence. Some more fun facts gleaned from the survey? 38% of folks have no idea what the games rating system means — and thus apparently no clue that there are suggestions to help them decide that maybe Call of Duty isn’t appropriate for their six-year-old yet, which whether you agree with it or not is every parent’s right. Oh, and a full 33% of parents surveyed admitted to letting their kids play whatever they wanted, suggesting that while nearly 60% of parents think that video games can transform their little angel into a remorseless killing machine, more than half of them don’t really seem to mind that much.

I hope you like having this stupid conversation with people — I sure don’t — because chances are good that it’s not going to stop anytime soon. With politicians on both sides of the aisle all too ready to chalk up recent violence to kids these days playing too damn many video games, chances are this depressing number isn’t going down anytime soon. Considering that sinking more money into studies on the impact of violent video games seems to be the only thing that Democrats and Republicans can agree on these days, you’ll see more and more of these studies in the news. Meanwhile, the looming sequester is about to slash NIH budgets by more than 8%, meaning that we’ll be able to find the cash to look at whether and FPS can turn you into a hardened murderer – we have, and they don’t — but cancer research can take a backseat.

Thanks to pundits, pols, and talking heads, the straw man of video games causing violence is well and thoroughly entrenched in the echo chamber. That means whether it has any validity or not — it doesn’t — people are going to keep talking about it, because hey, it’s pretty easy. Like, way easier than actually doing anything about the real issues at play here.

And really, who needs evidence when you’ve got what people believe on your side?

(via VentureBeat)

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  • Liggerstuxin

    OMG! Mental health care! Mental health care! Mental health care!

    We need free health care, Also the laws needs to be changed for how you can commit a potentially dangerous person.

    Hopefully Obama care has a mental health clause, because mental health is VERY important.

    Oh yeah, and don’t fuckin bully ANYONE, as someone who was bullied over a decade ago, I can assure you it can make you snap. And you never are the same after (Depending on the degree of course).

  • Brent Stewart

    This confirms my suspicions – most Americans are friggin stupid. Of COURSE there’s a correlation – violent people enjoy violent media. BUT! So do non-violent people. Just because violent people play violent video games doesn’t mean that violent video games MADE them violent. They were violent BEFORE they ever played a violent game. So what if it’s found that most violent psychopaths who commit mass murder also eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches does it mean that PB&J makes people violent? NO of course not.

    I see stupid people! They’re everywhere, they just don’t realize they’re stupid.

  • fail

    All of those polled also happened to be of the same audience that watches Fox News. Everyone between the ages of 55 and 64.

  • Riley

    You all realize in 20-30 years when my generation is the “average adults” no one will think that save for all the old crazy people, right? It’s a generational thing. And to be honest, 60% seems high, I have know a lot of people ages 30+ who play video games. This issue is pointless, and it does nothing to stop violence.

  • http://www.facebook.com/suparaddy Sarat Fegurgur

    So…60% of Americans are morons?

  • Kevin de Bie

    “A
    Correlation” Probably. Just like there may be a correlation between
    such events and drinking milk or eating a salad. A game does nothing to
    stimulate shooting people, at best it inspires the already
    malfunctioning mind to do something that would have done something else
    equally distrubing if games werent around. We have been doing absolutely
    horrible shit to eachother literally since we knew how to kill so i’m
    completely stumped how people actually beleive games have a relevant
    share in this. Devices like the Iron Maiden, the Guillotine, the Nuke, horrible Bioweapons, etc etc etc were not made by a people that play
    freagging call of duty… so how is this discussion even happening ffs.