Due to isolated incidents such as the Columbine or Sandy Hook shooting, some speculate that there is a correlation between playing video games and committing a heinous act against innocent people. This type of logic is simply unfounded, as any good statistician will point out. In fact, a 2004 report by the Secret Service into the causes of school attacks found that “The largest group of attackers exhibited an interest in violence in their own writings, such as poems, essays, or journal entries (37 percent, n = 15)” (Secret Service, 22) compared to just 12 percent of attackers exhibiting an interest in violent video games. Does this correlation imply that literature is causing children to become violent? Such an accusation is absurd, however, it has become standard to apply this same accusation to video games, despite the fact that the correlation is even lower than it is for
Due to isolated incidents such as the Columbine or Sandy Hook shooting, some speculate that there is a correlation between playing video games and committing a heinous act against innocent people. This type of logic is simply unfounded, as any good statistician will point out. In fact, a 2004 report by the Secret Service into the causes of school attacks found that “The largest group of attackers exhibited an interest in violence in their own writings, such as poems, essays, or journal entries (37 percent, n = 15)” (Secret Service, 22) compared to just 12 percent of attackers exhibiting an interest in violent video games. Does this correlation imply that literature is causing children to become violent? Such an accusation is absurd, however, it has become standard to apply this same accusation to video games, despite the fact that the correlation is even lower than it is for