No Suprises

I don't put too much stock in what the American Public believes. National elections should be enough to disabuse you of the quality of groupthink and if that's insufficient, there's always this.

A survey indicates that 58% of Americans believe in a correlation between video games and teenage violence. It's an easy correlation to make. Teenage kids play games and sometimes they are violent. They also ride bikes. BIKE RIDING IS CAUSING VIOLENCE. What?

These types of polls are garbage (which Americans? What kind of violence?) but I always wonder what adults blamed the violence on before video games. Probably drugs in the 70s, rock and roll in the 60s, television in the 50s, war in the 40s, poverty in the 30s, women's liberalism in the 20s, war (again) in the teens, etc, etc.

I don't have the energy to look up any of the infinite examples of teenage violence that predate video games. The entire notion is absurd and lazy. Oh, your perfect angel is acting like a shithead? I wonder what the cause is? It must be some external factor completely unrelated to you and/or your parenting. Except: No. 

If you're worried about your kid behaving violently because he/she plays violent video games the problem isn't the game(s), the problem is you.