One of the first things brought up when searching for the cause in the aftermath of a violent event is whether or not violent media that was consumed by the perpetrator had an influence on their actions (Rothmund et al. 769). Over the years much testing has been conducted to see if in fact this is the case, but researchers still have not come up a universally agreed upon answer to the question for many reasons (DeCamp & Ferguson 395). The thing preventing scientists from making a solid conclusion on whether or not violent media can be linked to violent acts is distinctive lack of cause and effect between the two, which is a conclusion in itself (Bender et al. 2). While it is important to understand why people think it, there are many reasons why violence in media, like video games, does not have a direct, significant correlation with violent behavior in young people.

Correlation, rather than causation, is the shaky ground with which many of the studies that claim violence in media causes violent actions or thoughts stand on. This is also the main reason why there is still much research and discussion on the topic, due to there not being a verifiable and agreed upon result (Bender et al. 2). Violence itself is not like blood pressure or heartrate in that it is hard to measure and quantify, so statistical results gained from testing it are not able to be used as decisively. Not only that, but violence can differ from person to person and is affected by different factors such as heredity and upbringing (DeCamp & Ferguson 389). Many of the studies that suggest a link or correlation between violent media and violent cognitive activity become null or at least less significant when taking these outside factors into consideration. This would suggest that for a lot of studies the results are less about the content of the media and more about the person being observed (Carroll 4:16).

Even if a direct correlation cannot be found between violent media and aggressive acts some would suggest that harder restrictions be placed upon violent video games anyways due to a moral standpoint. A position of pacifism and nonviolence gives an answer as to why some people are so against violent media, because the content of the games themselves oppose those values (Rothmund et al. 771). A person coming from that standpoint could view the tendency of video games to reward violent acts to be dangerous without data that says it truly is (Carnagey & Anderson 888). While there is no problem with these differing opinions and ideas in theory, the problem comes with people trying to push their values onto other people through laws and regulations. A pastime like violent video games that reflects ideas that someone from a nonviolent moral standpoint is against is a threat to that person’s moral values. The reason violent video games cannot be banned from this moral ideology is because not everyone shares it (Rothmund et al. 771-772).

Talking about moral viewpoints is important when looking at an argument without clear cut data, but cultural beliefs can also change how different topics are looked at. For example, Germany and Australia are two countries with radically different viewpoints on the effects of violent video games. This is a significant disparity because it reiterates that the content of the games themselves are not necessarily important for determining whether or not harsher restrictions should be placed on them (Schroeder 11-12). There are some studies, whether or not they are accurate, that suggest that playing violent video games makes it easier to commit violent. To be more specific, Zheng Jia-Kun and Zhang Qian found that “playing violence computer games significantly primed aggression” (Zheng & Qian 1755). Germany was a country that completely accepted these kinds of studies. Video games became a sort of scapegoat that the German mass media would prey upon anytime a violent act like a shooting was committed. Meanwhile, Australia for the most part had a drastically different set of views on the subject of violent media and violent video games specifically. While a German might say that video games could cause someone to become a serial killer, an Australian would probably note that the worst thing to come out of playing video games is that the person would stay inside too much. German’s harsh views on video games seems to come from socio-cultural factors rather than the video games themselves which is suggested by Australia’s lax view of the medium (Schroeder 11-12).

In asking why media like video games would be targeted by mass media in response to violent events in the first place, getting a look at other types of media can be helpful because it gives insight into different trends. One of the reasons video games have seemed to become a target is because it is a newer medium and the drastically different factor in that they are interactive, often rewarding players for acting in violent manners (Carnagey & Anderson 888). However, before the rise of video games, television was often on the receiving end of being blamed for the ills of children. A study in 1975, before video games was the giant industry they are today, looked that the effect of television on children’s behavior. They study determined that there was not a significant impact in violent nature because of adolescents’ consumption of television despite previous studies saying otherwise (Hartnagel et al. 348). Much like with video games, television had a similar disparity when it came to researching its effects. This only serves to strengthen the idea that violent behavior might be less about the media a young person consumes and more about other factors like genetics, parents, and environment (DeCamp & Ferguson 389).

Violent video games are not completely unrestricted despite what some people may think. There is a rating system and most games people would label as too violent for children are given a ‘mature’ rating, making illegal for retailers to sell games labeled as such to kids. However, often times those children will end up with those games anyways. No, the retailers are not disregarding the law, many times the parents of those children will disregard the warning signs and buy the game anyways (Krantz et al. 76). Parents are another very important outside factor that can greatly affect how a child behave. It has been shown that having strong relationships with family lowers the chances for children to commit crimes (DeCamp & Ferguson 390). After all, should we not blame the actions of children on the parents that raised them rather than an entertainment medium? There is a responsibility for parents to monitor what their children is exposed to and considering video games are the second least controlled media by parents, it may be fair to say that it has an impact. Now that is not to say that parents are completely at fault. A study done examining the ESRB, the rating system for video games, found it sorely lacking. Often times the rating’s description of the content of the video game would be extremely unclear to the point to where “warnings are on the package for ‘violence; and/or ‘strong language’ in games rated ‘T for Teen,’ scenes of racism, torture, and added incentives for increased senseless violence were not described” (Krantz et al. 84).

There is a significant difference between violent media causing violent thoughts and violent behavior, and while violent thoughts could in theory cause violent behavior making that leap is often difficult (Carrol). When the people in the news or politicians link extreme violence to video games they will often cite sources that show a correlation. The problem with this is that most of the sources that state a correlation with violent video games do so with violent thoughts rather than violent behavior (DeCamp & Ferguson 388). This is where meta-analysis, which is a study observing other studies, can help clear things like bias and other legitimacy issues. Many of the studies that specifically showed violent thoughts rather than behaviors noted that the violent thoughts would only last for about four minutes to half an hour. It is hard to argue against video games and other media when the only negative effects are a very short period of a slightly more aggressive state of mind (Carrol). The reality is that video games are such a huge medium with millions of players that if they were as bad as some of the studies say they are there should be a very significant effect (Schroeder 12). It seems just the opposite though, violence is decreasing and it seems clearer and clearer that video games have no significant impact on violence at all (Carrol).

Recency bias is when something is affected due to something having taken place recently, and absolutely has an effect on the discussion of violent media. Like gun laws, discussion about violence in media, especially video games, rears back around to the forefront of news channels, publicists, and law makers (DeCamp & Ferguson 388). An example of recency bias is when actor Jim Carrey became less involved in the movie Kick-Ass 2 after the Sandy Hook massacre. He stated that he could not support the extreme violence that the movie presented, but this only happened after the terrible shooting. The movie did not suddenly become more violent and there was not a sudden shift on how much violence was socially acceptable, but in the wake of the tragedy working in a fantasy display of violence seemed wrong in the face of real horrific violence (Bender et al. 1).

Children’s abilities to separate the fantasy of violence in media and violence in the real world has been a major talking point, and often times a boon to the side of the argument suggesting that media violence has a real effect on the actions and thoughts of young children and adolescents. This spouts from the idea that younger kids especially have a hard time distinguishing the two, causing negative effects such as desensitization or decrease in empathy. However, recent studies have shown that not only can pre-school aged children make the distinction fairly well for their age, but their ability to separate reality from make believe becomes even better when presented with a negative stimulus like violence (Metličar 163-164). There is still variability in this study and others like this, again from mainly variables that are outside the realm of testing. It once again falls towards the parents to control and monitor what they think their child can handle, because these results are not to say that children should now suddenly be able to play or watch whatever they would like to (Carroll).

Due to the effects of violence in media being such a polarizing topic in the scientific field, there are just as many studies that say they do cause violence than those that say they do not. It is important to look at both sides in order to get the clearest picture before choosing either side of the argument. There are a lot of weaknesses that both viewpoints share on a scientific level. It is also understandable why parents and other adults might be worried about young people having their mentality and behavior poisoned by violent media that has become commonplace, but caution needs to be heeded when looking to restrict a huge business on shoddy data (DeCamp & Ferguson 388). One of the main reasons why the amount of studies that say violent media causes violence even comes close to the ones that say it does not is because of publication bias. Publication bias refers to the fact that studies have a higher chance of being published when they produce a positive result. Even if negative results are just as important, doing research and finding that nothing has changed does not get studies published into journals. Researchers know this, which can result in publication bias from the scientists skewing or interpreting data in ways they probably should not (Carrol). Another problem is that many of these studies are not longitudinal, meaning that they provide no clear answer as to whether or not they have any long term affects. There is also the matter that there is no universally agreed upon measure of behavior or thoughts when looking at aggression. Each experiment or study uses their own way to calculate data. This can make it hard to compare data and easy for scientists to manipulate it to attain the result they want (Jia-Kun & Qian 1756).

The question of whether or not violence in media causes violent actions or thoughts in young people cannot be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. The argument that action should be taken against media that includes graphic violence like mature rated video games is weak for many more reasons besides the fact that scientists have yet to come to a solid answer on the direct influences these types of media present to young people (DeCamp & Ferguson 388). When considering restriction of violent media at a time where there is no conclusive data, people have to look towards other factors to make their decisions. To make a decision based off a moral standpoint greatly interferes with the freedoms of other people that do not share those ideals, so to do so would be ineffective at best (Rothmund et al. 771). Considering why different countries around the globe have drastically different laws and regulations in regard to what types of content is able to be produced in sold is also a significant factor because it introduces the principle that the issues that people bring up with violence in media, especially video games, is a issue of conflict with the culture of that country rather than anything that the media actually contains or represents (Schroeder 11-12). A clue into the pattern that seems to repeat with violence in different types of media can be found with the conflicting results that come out of research involving types of media that were popular before video games became the virtual giant they are today. Specifically, the research done in occurrence with television allows researchers conducting meta-analysis to look at a bigger picture, given that scientists were not able to pin down a link between violence and television either (Hartnagel et al. 341). One of the most condemnatory facts for the argument that violent media causes aggression in young people is that many of the studies that found a link between violent behavior or thoughts and violent content often admitted that much of their results were afflicted by outside sources (Carrol). The fact of the matter is that violent content ended up having an insignificant impact on a young person’s behavior when compared to more important outside sources like their caregivers, home environment, and their own genetics. These variables, which are often hard or impossible to control, can greatly skew the data (DeCamp & Ferguson 390). All of the research done and all of the different results achieved means nothing if no action is taken for the rights of creators to make and release media with violent content contained in it. If more belief falls upon the side that this violent media does indeed cause violence in real life, which it clearly does not, then another step forward must be taken. Supporters of this cause may suggest something along the lines of going to their lawmakers and getting bans or restrictions in place to protect young people from these ‘dangerous’ pieces of media, but then it becomes a censorship issue. We cannot allow creative media in whatever form to be restricted due to becoming the center of shaky at best research on their effects (Carroll).

 