Video Games Unlikely To Cause Real-World Violence, Experts Say

WASHINGTON – In the wake of mass shootings in California, Texas and Ohio, President Trump and top Republicans are citing video games as one explanation for the violence.

Although, experts say there is little evidence to link violent games to violence in the real-world.

“Games have only become more realistic. The players of games and violent games have only become more diverse. And they’re played all around the world now,” said Andrew Przybylski, an associate professor at the University of Oxford who studies digital media.

“But the only place where you see this kind of narrative still hold any water, that games and violence are related to each other, is in the United States.”

A study published this year looked at more than a thousand British adolescents. It found no link between the time spent playing violent video games and aggressive behavior.

That’s consistent with other recent research showing little, if any, link between violence and video games.