A psychologist’s research gives answers.

Although Donald Trump had a meeting this week with people such as the CEOs of Take-Two or Zenimax (the owners of Bethesda), psychologists got no invitation. It would have been a good idea, though – Patrick Markey, a professor at Villanova University, is knowledged in the subject.

In 2014, he wrote a paper called Violent Video Games and Real-World Violence: Rhetoric Versus Data, which reported that there was no evidence of video games contributing to violence, and major releases of violent (M rated) games decreased the regularity of these crimes happening.

Perhaps this paper was the base of Markey’s book (co-authored by Chris Ferguson, another psychologist) which launched roughly a year ago, called Moral Combat: Why the War on Violent Video Games Is Wrong. Markey quoted it on Twitter: „THE REAL LINKS BETWEEN VIDEO GAMES AND VIOLENCE: as games have become more popular violence has decreased. Times when people are playing games violence decreases. Countries that consume games among the safest. School shooters play games 3x LESS than an average student.”

It cites a study conducted by the United States’ Secret Service (Safe School Initiative), and it reports that only 12% of school shooters showed any interest towards violent games, which is way less than any other media (such as films). However, the study was made in 2002, but Markey thinks the ratio is still just between 13 and 20%, while 70% of high school students are interested in games. The book also has an assessment by Dr. Peter Langman, who analyzed the tragedic events that happened between 2005 and 2012. His result? Only 20% of the shooters have played video games…

So, going by just by the statistics, the answer to the question in the title of the article is leaning towards „no.”

Source: WCCFTech