Video Games and Violence
I.Does anybody know who Adam Lanza was ? He is notorious for the school shooting at Sandy hook
which took the life of 26 people and himself. Do you know what his favorite video game was? It was
Dance Dance Revolution, not exactly your poster child for violent video games.
A.I have played video games since the moment I knew they existed and know there is almost no
one in this class that has not played a video game of some sort in their lifetime.
B.I will be discussing the lack of correlation with the popularity of video games and increased
societal violence.
To get started lets examine the numbers when it comes to violence and video games.
II. The data does not support a rise in violent crime along with the rise in video game use.
1. 97 percent of americans 12 to 17 play video games(Violent Video Games, 2016)
2. Video Sales have risen yet criminality has decreased (Teaching Us Fear:The Violent Video
Game Moral Panic and the Politics of Game Research,2017)
3. If Game violence causes real world violence, increases in video game play should be
followed by increases in violent crime. (Video Games and Youth,2015)
4. For every one percent in increase of video game sales crime has decreased by .03
