Are video games really the boogeyman of violence as the media claims? Let’s look at the reports.

Many video game players are currently facing criticism due to recent incidents involving bullying and censorship. Countries such as Australia, Singapore, and China have stringent regulations on what can be included in video games. For instance, in China, games cannot depict blood and must substitute it with something else. This is just one example, but whether it's justified remains to be seen. Meanwhile, other countries are attempting to use video games as scapegoats for various issues.

Photo by Yan Krukau

In Malaysia, there's an ongoing online debate among parents, teachers, and others about whether video games are the primary cause of recent school violence. Some argue that games like PUBG, MLBB, Valorant, and DotA 2 require careful monitoring by parents.

Blaming video games is an age-old story. In the 50s, people accused rock music of being satanic and causing teen rebellion. In the 70s and 80s, Dungeons and Dragons was blamed for satanic and cult-like behavior. The 90s and early 2000s saw grunge music blamed, and now, video games, TikTok, and social media are criticized for encouraging people to do anything for likes, shares, and reactions. The pattern remains: youth and the things the older generation doesn't understand are often blamed.

But why does this happen? Some suggest it's because people don't want to take responsibility for their child's or student's actions. Others may simply dislike video games and use this as a "red herring," diverting attention to something unrelated and portraying it as the threat that must be stopped for "the sake of children's protection." How can this situation be addressed? One approach is to suggest monitoring what the child is doing, which is harmless. However, some advocate for a total ban on video games.

But can playing video games cause violence in real life? Well, let's take a look at a few reports and see if the reports agree with this sentiment. According In 2019, a team from Oxford University led by Dr Andrew Przybylski studied over 1000 British teenagers and their parents. They tracked hours of violent gaming and real life behavior. The result was clear. There was no link between violent games and aggression. The American Psychological Association reviewed decades of similar research and reached the same conclusion in 2020. They stated that there is insufficient scientific evidence to claim that violent video games cause violent criminal behavior.

Let's take a bigger report, In 2015, Harvard University’s meta-analysis of over a hundred studies found that earlier claims were based on poor research design, selective sampling, and biased interpretations. And in 2004, the U.S. Secret Service and Department of Education reviewed 37 incidents of school violence. They found no evidence that violent games influenced the attackers. What they did find was chillingly consistent histories of mental health struggles, bullying, family conflict, and social isolation.

Countries like Japan and South Korea, where gaming culture is massive, have some of the lowest rates of violent crime on Earth. If games created killers, the evidence would show it. It doesn’t. Because the problem isn’t the games, Blaming video games is easy. But facing the truth requires courage. It requires us to admit that we are failing our children in homes, schools, and systems that treat emotions like weaknesses. They give people a place to breathe when the real world becomes too heavy. They are not the disease. They are often the medicine.

Violence never started with games. It started with the silence of a society that forgot how to listen.