The Truth About Violent Youth and Video Games

This has been blogged a few times around the web, and I thought seeing as how I talk about games amongst other things I'd blog about it too.

Games Revolution have gone through some surprising stats and discovered the Truth About Violent Youth and Video Games.

It plots the growth of violent crimes along a graph taken directly from the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Statistics and adds a timelime which shows when Playstation was introduced.














As can clearly be seen, since the introduction of the Playstation, violent crime has steadily dropped.

Now, I'm not going to go as far as to say that Playstation is responisble, but it is fair to say that the claims that violent games make people more violent are in fact a load of bullshit.

If the alarmists claim that violent video games cause violence, wouldn't these statistics, provided by the DOJ, show something different?

If even 10% of the total of 'gamers' out there were prone to violent actions as a direct result of gaming, this chart would show a lesser drop in the curve since the introduction of Playstation. As it becomes more popular, you should expect a rise in the curve, but that does not occur.

So, what can we do about these media and alarmists who keep throwing the violence begets violence arguments in our collective faces? We can arm ourselves with knowledge, we can point them to these statistics, we can point them to our own experiences, and hopefully they'll find some other poor whipping boy... hopefully they'll actually find a more relevent one and actually get things done!