Karen Sternheimer: violent videogame play up, youth-violence down

University of Southern California sociologist Karen Sternheimer notes in an article in the winter issue of the American Sociological Association’s Contexts magazine, that while a lot of folks tend to hold video games responsible for the violent youth, they tend to ignore that as videogame play has skyrocketed, youth violence has plummeted.

In the ten years since Doom‘s release – the game often blamed for the infamous Columbine High School shooting – juvenile homicide arrest rates fell 77 percent. And now, students have less than a 7 in 10 million chance of being killed at school. Sternheimer notes:

It is equally likely that more aggressive people seek out violent entertainment. …After adult rampage shootings in the workplace, which happen more often than school shootings, reporters seldom mention if the shooters played video games.

Sternheimer adds that in the end, placing the blame on videogames removes the culpability of the criminals. This is tempting for most, especially when white, middle-class boys who live in the suburbs of America are the culprits. Sternheimer writes:

When boys from “good” neighborhoods are violent, they seem to be harbingers of a “new breed” of youth, created by video games rather than by social circumstances. White, middle-class killers retain their status as children easily influenced by a game, victims of an allegedly dangerous product. African-American boys, apparently, are simply ‘dangerous.’

As for previous studies that have shown that videogames did increase aggressive behavior, Sternheimer says that those don’t offer much insight as to why only a few isolated kids, and not the millions of others who play the games, decide to pick up real weapons and shoot people.

If you’re a but more curious about the subject, a copy of  Karen Sternheimer’s article can be had via our “read” link below.

University of Southern California sociologist Karen Sternheimer notes in an article in the winter issue of the American Sociological Association’s Contexts magazine, that while a lot of folks tend to hold video games responsible for the violent youth, they tend to ignore that as videogame play has skyrocketed, youth violence has plummeted.

In the ten years since Doom‘s release – the game often blamed for the infamous Columbine High School shooting – juvenile homicide arrest rates fell 77 percent. And now, students have less than a 7 in 10 million chance of being killed at school. Sternheimer notes:

It is equally likely that more aggressive people seek out violent entertainment. …After adult rampage shootings in the workplace, which happen more often than school shootings, reporters seldom mention if the shooters played video games.

Sternheimer adds that in the end, placing the blame on videogames removes the culpability of the criminals. This is tempting for most, especially when white, middle-class boys who live in the suburbs of America are the culprits. Sternheimer writes:

When boys from “good” neighborhoods are violent, they seem to be harbingers of a “new breed” of youth, created by video games rather than by social circumstances. White, middle-class killers retain their status as children easily influenced by a game, victims of an allegedly dangerous product. African-American boys, apparently, are simply ‘dangerous.’

As for previous studies that have shown that videogames did increase aggressive behavior, Sternheimer says that those don’t offer much insight as to why only a few isolated kids, and not the millions of others who play the games, decide to pick up real weapons and shoot people.

If you’re a but more curious about the subject, a copy of  Karen Sternheimer’s article can be had via our “read” link below.