Researcher Finds No Link Between Violent Games and School Shootings 116
GamePolitics writes "A researcher at Texas A&M International University has found no link between playing violent video games and school shootings. Prof. Christopher Ferguson cites 'moral panic' and criticizes politicians, the news media and some social scientists for playing up what he believes is a false connection between video games and school shooting incidents. Quoting: 'Actual causes of violent crime, such as family environment, genetics, poverty, and inequality, are oftentimes difficult, controversial, and intractable problems. By contrast, video games present something of a "straw man" by which politicians can create an appearance of taking action against crime.'"
Video games don't have a monopoly on violence. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is it just video games that are subject to all this scrutiny? Board games cause violence too.
My sister was perfectly capable of flying into a murderous rage if someone else purchased Boardwalk or Park Place in a game of Monopoly when we were kids.
Sudden (Score:4, Insightful)
Sudden outbreak of ... he'll be completely ignored.
Let's face it, saying "The new shiny thing that you barely know anything about, is the true responsible for all the evils" will always work better for the news than "There's just about the same percentage of bad people as always, nothing to see here, move along."
"...And?" Indeed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow, something every person who plays games already knows.
Well, I was thinking the same thing, except from the opposite direction. I'm was kind of skeptical about how he might have showed no link given the small sample group of school shooters and the difficulty in finding actual video game links, but there's really nothing of the sort here. He's largely just criticizing the methodology (or complete lack thereof) of most people howling about the link between video games and school shootings.
He's basically doing little more than pointing out the obvious, but not really proving his own point. It's very much a, "Here's some common sense, here's where most of the people talking about the supposed connection betray their ignorance, and here's some outrage and politics too" kind of article. Less science than editorial. (One with a decent point mind you, but let's not pretend this is proof of the opposite. He's just calling "BS.")
Re:Video games don't have a monopoly on violence. (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is it just video games that are subject to all this scrutiny?
Video games are subject to this scrutiny for two reasons:
1) There was once a study along time ago showing that kids exposed to aggressive TV acted out aggressively afterward. A host of studies since then have alleged the same effect from video games. Studies have supported and refuted both ideas, and people have also called into question the link between aggressive play behavior and real world aggression. Unfortunately, a lot of the research and reporting on the research on both sides seems to be heavily tainted by preconceived bias.
2) Video games are a form of recreational media enjoyed by a substantial number of youths today, and they are often avoided by excessive moralists, who tend not to "get" what "the kids" are into. We did the same thing with rock & roll, rap music, tabletop gaming, etc.
It's one half politicized science and one half culture war.
Board games cause violence too.
My sister was perfectly capable of flying into a murderous rage if someone else purchased Boardwalk or Park Place in a game of Monopoly when we were kids.
Oh, pfft. You know there's a difference between something that is alleged to provoke violence and something which is just fought over. Let's not be silly.
Sometimes that's enough (Score:5, Insightful)
And technically, since we're talking science, that's enough disproof. The burden of proof lies on the one who claims to have a proof. Pointing out the holes in his proof is disproof enough. You don't have to prove the opposite, which sometimes is even impossible or unfeasible.
E.g., if I claim to have proof that extraterrestrials live among us in disguise, it's up to me to prove that, not up to you to prove that all 6 billion humans on Earth were born on Earth. The latter would be unreasonably hard a "proof" to do, and frankly it's not your burden to do. (Much as various nuts and fanatics like to pretend that it's your job to prove them wrong, and they're right if you don't.) But if you can find big enough holes in my data or methodology, that's actually disproof enough.
Ditto for games. It's very hard to prove, especially for someone who's already dead, that games absolutely didn't have an influence on him. You can't resurrect him and haul him to a shrink. Now picture doing that for a few hundreds of people. It's unreasonable, and, again, it's frankly not your burden of proof. The ones who claim that the link between games and violence exist, and even use it as a true premise to base further rationale on (e.g., that therefore this or that legislation is needed), those have to first prove it. If you can poke holes in their proof, that's disproof enough.
So to summarize it, the answer to your "let's not pretend this is proof of the opposite" is: he doesn't have to prove the opposite in the first place.
In the end, probably what we actually need is actually less people getting suck(er)ed into the game of accepting that they have to prove the opposite, and more people who just call BS until the ones making the claim presented a good enough proof. Once you accept the burden of proving the opposite, essentially you've accepted that unless you can do the unreasonable !X proof, the bullshitter is right. That's already playing their game. They just need to be slapped silly with the notion of who has to prove what, and that an unproven claim is null and void and not to be taken any more seriously than opinionated gossip overheard on a plane.
Re:What about the easy availability of guns ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Considering the three cases you've linked, the death toll at Dunblane was 17. The total death toll of the other two (despite the "impressive" flame-thrower) was 0. It's impossible to say if people would definitely have been killed if the men in those cases had access to firearms, but I don't think it's a completely unreasonable assumption to make.
People may try to kill other people all the time - but that doesn't mean we have to make it easy on them.
Re:Sometimes that's enough (Score:3, Insightful)
I just read the original research article. The author provides the caveat that there is fair evidence that there is a small causal link between violent video games and aggression. He stated that there really is no good evidence to support a causal link between violent video games and school shootings - a very small population because there are not many school shooters.
However, in the end, the author believes that much of this focus on violent video games and school shootings is just hype.
I have to add though that there is indisputable evidence (replicated many times in many settings and many ways) showing a link between viewing violent acts and subsequently performing violent acts. To deny that violent media (movies, games, etc.) does not affect someone negatively is naive. On the other hand, to say that violent video games causes school shootings and other criminal violence is premature.
How about a completely different angle? (Score:4, Insightful)
How many people have been going on killing sprees because they said God told them it was a swell idea? Yet nobody discusses outlawing religion, or keeping it away from the feeble minds of small children.
I see no fundamental problem there (Score:3, Insightful)
I see no fundamental problem there. Essentially you're legally required to make a claim that your medicine (A) works better than placebo, and (B) you know and disclose the risks and potential side effects. And you're required to prove it.
The requirement part comes from having such bad experiences as someone selling sulpha dilluted in ethylene glycol... which is a very deadly poison, and actually killed everyone who took that medicine. In excruciating pain, over a couple of weeks. So now if you don't or can't make and prove those claims, you're not allowed to market that medicine. Or not as medicine.
But that's largely a legal construct, and has nothing to do with how logic works or how burden of proof works. We as a society decided that you _must_ make and prove that kind of claims.
But burden of proof even there works the old fashioned way. _You_ must prove it. It doesn't work like "it's good medicine unless someone else can prove otherwise."
effect size (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sometimes that's enough (Score:3, Insightful)
No, a logical argument in science does not constitute disproof. While it's fair to say the burden of proof is on the claimant, not being able to prove a claim doesn't prove the inverse.
As GP points out, any kind of statistical correlation with school shootings will be very difficult, due to the rarity of shootings. I think we all know there's no direct effect -- in no case was the shooting an immediate, direct result of the video game. The researcher points out that no studies are able to show a video game-shooting correlation, that there is no logical reason to think video games are a cause, and that there are good logical (sociological) explanations for why video games are blamed despite not being the cause. Taken together, this is very good motivation to think "video games are not a contributing factor to school shootings" until proven otherwise.
It's just that that's not the same as scientific proof.