Why waste time stacking colorful blocks in Tetris when you can punch a pedestrian in the jaw, steal a helicopter, and blow up a cop car in Grand Theft Auto? A large group of grouchy old white dudes (politicians) in the United States believe that video games like Grand Theft Auto are causing our nation’s youth to commit massacres, and over the years, games have seemingly become scapegoats for the Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook tragedies. As both a lifelong video game player and, at the time of this writing, not a mass murderer, I became curious as to if I was in fact an anecdotal case, as somebody who has never injured any person other than the occasional pixelated baddie on a screen.
But back to my earlier claim about Tetris VS. Grand Theft Auto: according to this TIME Magazine article, 90% of kids who play video games would choose the latter. This implies that most kids who play games at all are much more likely to choose the violent ones. This is unsurprising. Nobody likes Tetris anymore. However, this does mean that there are significant implications if it turns out that video game violence translates into real-world aggression. 
The TIME article cites a study done by a group of scientists led by Craig Anderson, who sampled a group of 3,034 boys and girls in Singapore who played violent games. Anderson’s team would question the children “three times over a period of two years about their video game habits” as well as psychological tests which dealt with aggression and violence.
The study showed that kids who played more violent video games for more hours per day were more likely to react to a conflict with violence, and more likely to “respond with violence when provoked, even accidentally.”
I personally do not think this proves that game violence causes real violence. My best guess on this topic is that it is a case of reverse causation, and that means that the kids who play violent video games were quite possibly already prone to be more violent. In other words, I think it’s very possible that the children who spent an unusual amount of time playing violent video games would have already had a sort of drive to act aggressively, otherwise they wouldn’t crave virtual violence so much.
I couldn’t agree with you more on the issue here. Politicians or moms are excellent in drawing conclusion they want by manipulating one phenomenon. I think you would be interested in analyzing gun-control issue too. Does gun make people commit crime or are people with guns already ill-tempered and prone to making unnecessary decisions?
My mother was always so adamant that video games caused violence yet she allowed my brothers to play the violent games so I found your post very interesting. You should check out this link it talks about a study done at oxford testing the exact same thing you researched. I think you would find it interesting.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/04/08/at-long-last-video-game-aggression-linked-to-losing-not-violence/
This article brings up an interesting point that is often debated when a tradegy of violence occurs. Personally as I grew up without video games, let alone violent games, I can see how children would get the wrong idea about violence by playing these incredibly violent video games. I think that this virtual violence evokes violence in real life because that is what the children playing these games are used to seeing, especially if they are very young. Many studies have found that violent video games can make children more violent and aggressive in real life.
I grew up playing GTA, literally. I’ve owned every GTA that has been released since I was about 7 years old. I always played them because of how entertaining they are. Never once have I felt that the game was influencing me in any way. It comes down to maturity. My parents knew I was a smart and sensible kid so they never cared that I played GTA. Anyone who can’t detach video games from reality aren’t mature enough to play them in the first place.
Here’s an interesting article that you might find humorous:
http://kotaku.com/grand-theft-auto-blamed-after-eight-year-old-shoots-gra-1201375715
I’m glad that you have chosen this topic. The link between being violent in person and playing violent video games is something that has always interested me. I think that it is easy to blame video games for influencing people to be violent, but there is no specific evidence that proves this. According to this graph there is no correlation with video games and violence. Although the graph only shows studies up to the year 2004, video games have not gotten anymore popular since then and violent video games were released before then.