Hey CATV fans! Its Lauren here, and I am about to tackle a touchy subject this week. We have all seen the unfortunate news about the mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas at the beginning of this month, and our hearts here go out to all the victims and victims' families.
Whenever a large tragedy occurs, we as human beings try to rationalize the problem and demote it to an issue that makes sense to the masses, or at least the agenda of certain masses. Where there were two separate pieces of scum that made the choice to do these terrible things, it has the sharks circling to find common things between the two. Select parties have circled and have made these tragedies a platform to use against video games. In the US, our own politicians are placing the blame on video games citing that they “dehumanize individuals” and that the video game industry “teaches young people to kill.”
Now, I don’t know about you guys, but it seems to me that it is so much easier for leaders to point their fingers outwards, to place blame on an excuse, rather than face the truth of growing political issues. It is almost if people forget that this issue has already been addressed by the US Supreme Court back in 2011 with the Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association case. This case actually pointed out in the majority opinion that “studies that are purporting to show a connection between violent video games and harmful effects on children have been rejected by every court to consider them, because they cannot prove that it causes aggressive actions.”
Personally, one of my biggest stress relief actions is playing video games, and I'm not alone. In a study for the Journal of Adolescent Health, 61.9% of those polled claimed that playing video games helped them relax, 47.8% claimed that it helps to forget problems, and 45.4% claimed that it helped to manage anger issues. When I was growing up, I played a lot of games that showed me a lot of different points of view which I truly think helped shape my moral compass as an adult. It made me more understanding, because in these games, sometimes I would find myself playing as a character that I didn’t always agree with, but to continue the story I had to go along with the main character and see exactly what made this character who they were and why they made the choices that they did.
As an industry that I love and hope to continue to see blossom in this world, it truly infuriates me to see this cast as the big problem in the world, when it truly is just a scapegoat. Do not let people tell you that by playing videogames that you are a part of the problem, their blindness to larger issues IS the problem. Now I’m going to get off my soapbox and go play a game.
-Lauren
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