Do violent video games create killers?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Do violent video games create killers?". Your opponent's style: Shroud

Yes, video games reinforces violent thoughts which reinforces violence in reality. All killers have played violent video games. It desensitizes you.

Bro, that's straight-up wrong. Playing violent games for weeks didn't alter neural responses to others' pain, and accumulating evidence shows violent video games have little to no substantial impact on emotional and social functioning. Your "all killers played violent games" claim? Complete BS. Longitudinal studies found no significant effect between changes in game violence and changes in aggression over time. That's with 3,000+ teens tracked for 18 months - not some lab experiment. The desensitization argument falls apart too. Recent studies found no evidence for desensitization effects on empathy and aggression at the within-person level. Research specifically showed no evidence that changes in violent gaming had any impact on future physical aggression. Here's what actually matters: Studies consistently find adolescent aggression is closely related to antisocial personality traits, peer influence, and family violence - not video games. You're blaming pixels when the real factors are right in front of us. The correlation you're seeing? More aggressive kids tend to choose violent games, especially younger ones - that's selection bias, not causation. Games don't create killers; troubled environments and existing personality disorders do.

You're cherry-picking data and ignoring the obvious connection. Only 12 percent of perpetrators in mass shootings had interest in violent video games - but that's still 12% more than random chance would predict if there was no connection at all. The real issue is that fewer mass shooters play violent video games than do not, but what about the intensity and type of games they play? Children who played video games with gun violence were more likely to touch a real handgun, handle it longer and pull the trigger more times - that's direct behavioral conditioning. Your studies focus on general aggression, but I'm talking about specific violent conditioning that creates muscle memory and desensitization to killing. The connection isn't just correlation - it's training.

Your 12% claim is trash data. Numerous scientific studies have not found a link between violent video games and mass shootings, according to the American Psychological Association. APA research published in 2019 analyzed more than 200,000 news articles about 204 mass shootings over a 40-year period, finding that video games were eight times more likely to be mentioned when the shooting occurred at a school and the perpetrator was a white male - that's media bias, not causation. Studies of mass shootings have provided no evidence for links with violent video games. A 2002 report from the US Secret Service found that school shooters appeared to consume relatively low levels of violent media. The handgun study you mentioned? That's one isolated experiment that doesn't translate to real-world violence. The "muscle memory" argument is ridiculous. A longitudinal study published in Molecular Psychiatry in 2021 found no significant changes in empathy or prosocial behavior between those who played violent games versus non-violent games daily for two months. A 2023 study found that playing "Grand Theft Auto V" does not decrease empathy in players. Stanford researchers reviewed 82 medical research articles pertaining to any causal link between playing video games and violent behavior. They found none. Your "training" theory falls apart when actual scientists examine the data systematically instead of cherry-picking isolated studies.