Games and School Shootings Not Linked

In a new academic article released in the Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, a researcher at Texas A&M International University found insufficient evidence that playing violent video games leads to aggressive behavior, including deadly school shootings.

The Entertainment Consumers Association blog GamePolitics.com pulled some interesting information from the article, including the notion of "moral panic," which the author of the journal article, Prof. Christopher Ferguson says often colors mainstream views of videogames and their perceived link to violent behavior.

Moral panics may emerge from 'culture wars' occurring in a society... politicians, news media and social scientists, arguably [have] motives for promoting hysterical beliefs about media violence, and video games specifically. Actual causes of violent crime, such as family environment, genetics, poverty, and inequality, are oftentimes difficult, controversial, and intractable problems. By contrast, video games present something of a 'straw man' by which politicians can create an appearance of taking action against crime...

Ferguson's study points out numerous flaws in some previous studies of videogames and aggression, including those by federal agencies like the F.B.I. Despite multiple studies, Ferguson finds that no evidence has been presented establishing a link between the two. Not only is there no link, there's no evidence of a causal relationship at all between videogame play and violent behavior, Ferguson finds.

http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/947/947160p1.html