Guns, Games, and Violence.

I am tired. So, very tired.

It’s the same bullshit every day. The Polygon editors are the worst. Now that the NRA has said that violent media is to blame.

I don’t know anymore. I feel oppressed. Like the Irish in the UK.

Do video games directly cause violence? No. That’s what people do. Do video games have a negative impact on our empathy? Studies have shown that they do.

Violent Video Game Effects on Empathy/Desensitization

Main analyses. Table 8 presents the main results on empathy/desensitization. VGV exposure was significantly related to less empathy (and more desensitization) regardless of research design and regardless of whether the zero-order or partial correlations were used.

When sex and Time 1 effects were controlled, research design was a significant moderator variable. Of course, because there was only one experimental study, comparisons across designs should be made with caution. Additional moderator tests— best partials data. There were too few experimental and longitudinal studies to do any additional moderator analyses. For cross-sectional studies, we were able to test the moderating effects of culture and video game exposure measure. On average, effect sizes were larger in Western studies than in Eastern studies.
Furthermore, culture and video game exposure measure were confounded; four of the five VGV-specific studies came from a Western culture, whereas all of the VGV-general studies came from Eastern cultures.

The present findings show that the social– cognitive theoretical view fits the existing data on video game violence effects quite well. This has important implications for public policy debates, for further development and testing of basic theory, and for development and testing of potential intervention strategies designed to reduce harmful effects of playing violent video games. Concerning basic theory, additional research of all three types (but especially experimental and longitudinal) is needed, especially on VGV effects on empathy, desensitization, and prosocial behavior. Additional longitudinal studies with longer intervals are needed for aggressive behavior and aggressive cognition. Furthermore, longitudinal studies with very large samples and very long time spans between the first time period and the last are needed so we can assess the impact of violent video games on very serious forms of physical aggression (i.e., violence). Concerning interventions, there have been a few studies with findings that suggest that specific programs involving schoolchildren and their parents can reduce exposure to violent media and the frequency of unwarranted aggressive behavior (e.g., Huesmann, Eron, Klein, Brice, & Fischer, 1983; Robinson, Wilde, Navracruz, Haydel, & Varady, 2001).

Concerning public policy, we believe that debates can and should finally move beyond the simple question of whether violent video game play is a causal risk factor for aggressive behavior; the scientific literature has effectively and clearly shown the answer to be “yes.” Instead, we believe the public policy debate should move to questions concerning how best to deal with this risk factor. Public education about this risk factor—and about how parents, schools, and society at large can deal with it— could be very useful.

http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/caa/abstracts/2010-2014/10asisbsrs.pdf

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-me-care

https://scholarworks.aub.edu.lb/bitstream/handle/10938/7948/t-5268.pdf?sequence=1

http://psp.sagepub.com/content/31/11/1573.short

http://www.ipearlab.org/media/publications/Changes_in_Dispositional_Empathy_-_Sara_Konrath.pdf

There are a ton of research papers, dissertations, and legal documents (totaling over 1000 pages) of which I paid for (that my wife has called it my Christmas) that I can give you a link to. They all say the same thing. Violent video games negatively effect our empathy and aggression.

We can ignore the evidence that gun control does nothing like

http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

Why are we so afraid to have this discussion? Why do we defend violence? We should be horried by it, and yet me glorify it.

I AM NOT SAYING BAN VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES, but I am saying that we need to talk about the negative impacts violent games have on us and how to counter act what they are doing to our empathy and aggression levels. In short, we shouldn't blindly defend video games.

*** Right now I am reading the 92 page article on the SCOTUS decision on video games. http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/08-1448.pdf It's truly and interesting subject and one we need to pay attention to.

I am tired. So, very tired.

It’s the same bullshit every day. The Polygon editors are the worst. Now that the NRA has said that violent media is to blame.

I don’t know anymore. I feel oppressed. Like the Irish in the UK.

Do video games directly cause violence? No. That’s what people do. Do video games have a negative impact on our empathy? Studies have shown that they do.

Violent Video Game Effects on Empathy/Desensitization

Main analyses. Table 8 presents the main results on empathy/desensitization. VGV exposure was significantly related to less empathy (and more desensitization) regardless of research design and regardless of whether the zero-order or partial correlations were used.

When sex and Time 1 effects were controlled, research design was a significant moderator variable. Of course, because there was only one experimental study, comparisons across designs should be made with caution. Additional moderator tests— best partials data. There were too few experimental and longitudinal studies to do any additional moderator analyses. For cross-sectional studies, we were able to test the moderating effects of culture and video game exposure measure. On average, effect sizes were larger in Western studies than in Eastern studies.
Furthermore, culture and video game exposure measure were confounded; four of the five VGV-specific studies came from a Western culture, whereas all of the VGV-general studies came from Eastern cultures.

The present findings show that the social– cognitive theoretical view fits the existing data on video game violence effects quite well. This has important implications for public policy debates, for further development and testing of basic theory, and for development and testing of potential intervention strategies designed to reduce harmful effects of playing violent video games. Concerning basic theory, additional research of all three types (but especially experimental and longitudinal) is needed, especially on VGV effects on empathy, desensitization, and prosocial behavior. Additional longitudinal studies with longer intervals are needed for aggressive behavior and aggressive cognition. Furthermore, longitudinal studies with very large samples and very long time spans between the first time period and the last are needed so we can assess the impact of violent video games on very serious forms of physical aggression (i.e., violence). Concerning interventions, there have been a few studies with findings that suggest that specific programs involving schoolchildren and their parents can reduce exposure to violent media and the frequency of unwarranted aggressive behavior (e.g., Huesmann, Eron, Klein, Brice, & Fischer, 1983; Robinson, Wilde, Navracruz, Haydel, & Varady, 2001).

Concerning public policy, we believe that debates can and should finally move beyond the simple question of whether violent video game play is a causal risk factor for aggressive behavior; the scientific literature has effectively and clearly shown the answer to be “yes.” Instead, we believe the public policy debate should move to questions concerning how best to deal with this risk factor. Public education about this risk factor—and about how parents, schools, and society at large can deal with it— could be very useful.

http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/caa/abstracts/2010-2014/10asisbsrs.pdf

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-me-care

https://scholarworks.aub.edu.lb/bitstream/handle/10938/7948/t-5268.pdf?sequence=1

http://psp.sagepub.com/content/31/11/1573.short

http://www.ipearlab.org/media/publications/Changes_in_Dispositional_Empathy_-_Sara_Konrath.pdf

There are a ton of research papers, dissertations, and legal documents (totaling over 1000 pages) of which I paid for (that my wife has called it my Christmas) that I can give you a link to. They all say the same thing. Violent video games negatively effect our empathy and aggression.

We can ignore the evidence that gun control does nothing like

http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

Why are we so afraid to have this discussion? Why do we defend violence? We should be horried by it, and yet me glorify it.

I AM NOT SAYING BAN VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES, but I am saying that we need to talk about the negative impacts violent games have on us and how to counter act what they are doing to our empathy and aggression levels. In short, we shouldn't blindly defend video games.

*** Right now I am reading the 92 page article on the SCOTUS decision on video games. http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/08-1448.pdf It's truly and interesting subject and one we need to pay attention to.

@l4wd0g: ORLY? Because here is a lady doing a TED talk about how Action games even violent shooting games like Call of Duty which is used in the example is actually GOOD for our brains.

Alright, you know what, let's have this disccussion. Hit me. Start this disscussion. Go, tell me what's on your mind. You don't want to ban violent games, what do you want to talk about then?

^ Badass knowledgeable post is badass.

Great TED talk.

Why don't I want to talk about it?

Because it always ends up in people finding different studies from different places to support their own findings. This is one of those things that comes down to a "NO, I'M RIGHT AND YOU'RE A FUCKING IDIOT" shouting matches, and I don't give a fuck.

The people that pick up guns and start shooting other people for no apparent reason are nuts. They're mental. They've existed since the beginning of mankind and they'll continue to exist with or without the presence of video games, rock music, movies, rap, or whatever the hell anyone wants to scapegoat next.

Video games reduce empathy? Personal experience suggests otherwise, but I'm not a scientist. I know how accurate those studies are though.

Rregardless of how I feel about the debate it's nice to see someone show up to the mic with some actual facts for a change. So much of this discussion has been people spouting off statistics with no regard for truth. As for me, I am having a hard time playing games that put me behing the barrel of a gun shooting at human beings. Don't know if it will change but for now it is affecting my buying habits. Would I infringe on someone else playing them? Not at this time but who knows? "The Polygon editors are the worst." Also, this.

@believer258 said:

Why don't I want to talk about it?

Because it always ends up in people finding different studies from different places to support their own findings. This is one of those things that comes down to a "NO, I'M RIGHT AND YOU'RE A FUCKING IDIOT" shouting matches, and I don't give a fuck.

The people that pick up guns and start shooting other people for no apparent reason are nuts. They're mental. They've existed since the beginning of mankind and they'll continue to exist with or without the presence of video games, rock music, movies, rap, or whatever the hell anyone wants to scapegoat next.

You just described every argument on the internet about every subject. It's why I try not to get into these sorts of discussions anymore, even if I still get suckered in once in a while.

I'm curious about how those studies measured empathy. Aggression I could see but empathy seems like it would be a much more difficult. But do I really want to read through hundreds of pages for that? Hopefully skimming will find me the answer.

@believer258 said:

The people that pick up guns and start shooting other people for no apparent reason are nuts. They're mental. They've existed since the beginning of mankind and they'll continue to exist with or without the presence of video games, rock music, movies, rap, or whatever the hell anyone wants to scapegoat next.

Which highlights (sp) an issue about mental illness that no one is willing to talk about.

Idea for new topic perhaps ?

@feliciano182: Of course they won't talk about it, because placing the blame on the mentally ill is dangerous. Any politician that tries will be labeled as an unfeeling monster who is persecuting the disabled. So they go after guns and games instead because it makes them look like good, moral protectors of family safety regardless of if they manage to pass laws and bans or not.

I'd rather not see gun owners and video gamers go at eachother's throats. We should accept that Adam Lanza committed a monstrous act and is fully to blame for what happened at Sandy Hook. Just because the coward shot himself doesn't mean that somebody or something else needs to be punished in his stead.

Video games are not magically different than every other form of media. "Holding the controller" is actually no more affective than reading violence in a book and imagining it, or drawing closure between panels of comics or cuts of film.

It's not a matter of scientific whatever, it's a matter of censors legislating what you are allowed to consume. I'm an adult, I will not tolerate the government telling me that I can't consume media made by consenting adults for adults because it's not fit for children. That only achieves what the censors and government want, a nation of helpless children that need the government to wipe their asses for them.

If anything the news stations constantly parading violence has done more to desensitize us to violence than all the video games in the world.

You want facts, here are some god damn facts:

- The human nervous system consists of about 70 billions ( do note, it's just an approximation ), the number of possible synapses ( nervous impulse traveling from axons to dendrites/neurons body or from a neurons body directly to a dendrite/neuron body ) in an average human nervous system is about 500 trillions up to 2 quadrillion ( again, a matter that's up for debate as far as i know, but everyone will give you a number somewhere in between ).

Did i also say that we have millions of synapses happens daily in our brain... and each possible synapse will change us just a little bit.

Mind you, not each synapse can be 1 out of 1 quadrillion, because after a certain synapse happen you will only have a few billion combinations left and some synapses might almost never happen. Still you are left with a number of possibilities of "minds" so high that i cannot write a high enough power of 10 to show it to you.

And up until we can at least have a half-assed theory ( which we don't ) about how ALL of the brain works ( at the moment there are areas of the brain, whole damn areas, which we don't even surely know the purpose of ) nothing, and I do mean nothing, that anyone says about "comportment" changes due to " i don't give a fuck what" has ANY considerable scientific backing at all.

This studies are done by psychologist via tests and polls that could or could not be faked and could or could not be wrong.

So really "facts" about this don't exist. You can say " Games help relief stress, the encourage brain activity and they help kids learn" or you can say " Game encourage lack of empathy, laziness and make kids prefer to slip into their own reality and not consider the one we live in", both point are equally FUCKING VALID because there is no scientific backing for any of them.

You can take a liberal standpoint and say video games should be allowed because they are indeed a "from of expressing something" and in the end nothing more than lines upon lines of cod... much like a book.

You can take a conservative standpoint and say we were better of with them and not let you kids play them/discourage people from doing so.

You can take a conservative-socialist standpoint and say they should be banned because society was fine without them and they are bringing us down.

Or you can take a democratic stand point and say that if the majority agrees with them being "ok" up to certain limits or indeed up to no limits than the minority should accept what the majority says.

IN THE END NON IS 100% RIGHT AND NON IS 100% WRONG.

The spread of democracy, industrialization, education and greater awareness of human rights has certainly given people more freedom which they are using to develop their individuality. With individuality comes less empathy, it's a fact that ego when given the chance to flourish will trump empathy.

On a less depressing note, I read and listened to that SCOTUS decision on video games as it was concurrent. The supreme court really tore into those studies, so much so that strict scrutiny wasn't even needed to be applied which just shows you how terrible a case they put forward. Scalia's mention of Dante's Inferno(book) in the same sentence as Mortal Kombat was quite amazing if I'm remembering it correctly. I recommend it to anyone, it was written in pretty plain language. Any of the terms you don't know are easily googlable.

@ShatterShock said:

@feliciano182: Of course they won't talk about it, because placing the blame on the mentally ill is dangerous. Any politician that tries will be labeled as an unfeeling monster who is persecuting the disabled. So they go after guns and games instead because it makes them look like good, moral protectors of family safety regardless of if they manage to pass laws and bans or not.

I'd rather not see gun owners and video gamers go at eachother's throats. We should accept that Adam Lanza committed a monstrous act and is fully to blame for what happened at Sandy Hook. Just because the coward shot himself doesn't mean that somebody or something else needs to be punished in his stead.

I never said "placing the blame" on anyone, you can talk about investing more into medical and psychological endeavors without making it an ad hominem argument against people who are essentially sick, that is something people are not talking about with all the shooters, from Aurora to Connecticut, they were disturbed individuals who needed psychiatric attention.

What if you took the Boiling Frog Syndrome (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyBKz1wdK0M) and the Systematic Desensitization Theory and applied it to violent media. Then take the media we consume starting at 1890 and compare it every 40 years (to see the jump). What did you notice about the jump from the 1970's to 2010?

It would seem as though we are suffering the unintended effects of lowering our empathy levels by unwittingly submitting ourselves to systematic desensitization.

@Demoskinos:

@feliciano182:

Maybe I didn't make this part clear enough for you, but Ted's Talk verifies what all of those studies are saying. Here's what the frontal lobe (which they talk about being effected by video games in the Ted Talk) does:

• The Frontal Lobe

This is the most recent evolutionary addition to the brain. If the brain had a White House it would be here. It is the true center for command and control in your body. The Frontal lobe is responsible for functions such as reasoning, problem solving, judgement, impulse control. This coupled with the fact that it's the last to develop when we are young adults, probably answers a lot of questions for many parents out there. It also manages our higher emotions such as empathy and altruism. This lobe is also involved in motor control and memory.

Ted Talk just confirmed the other studies with their research on the brain saying the empathy level are effected.

@JordanK85 said:

I'm curious about how those studies measured empathy. Aggression I could see but empathy seems like it would be a much more difficult. But do I really want to read through hundreds of pages for that? Hopefully skimming will find me the answer.

I am far more concerned with with long term empathy loss than short term aggression hikes.

It's more than hundreds of pages, I've read somewhere around 1200 so far. Usually it's in the first few pages. If you search for "methodology or measure" it should take you to their break down (if it's an APA style paper).

Here's the one from Changes in Dispositional Empathyin American College Students Over Time: A Meta-Analysis http://www.ipearlab.org/media/publications/Changes_in_Dispositional_Empathy_-_Sara_Konrath.pdf

Measures of empathy tend to focus on either a cognitive understanding of another’s states (e.g., Hogan, 1969) or a vicarious other-oriented emotional response to these states (e.g., Mehrabian & Epstein, 1972). However, in the currentstudy we operationalized empathy as defined by the Davis Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; Davis, 1980, 1983a, 1983c), the only personality scale that follows a multidimensional theory of empathy. The IRI is a 28-item scale that consists of four different 7-item subscales, representing different components of interpersonal sensitivity. Empathic Concern (EC) measures people’s other-oriented feelings of sympathy for the misfortunes of others and, as such, is a more emotional component of empathy (e.g., “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me”). Perspective Taking (PT) is a more cognitive or intellectual component, measuring people’s tendencies to imagine other people’s points of view (e.g., “I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective”). The Fantasy (FS) subscale measures people’s tendencies to identify imaginatively with fictional characters in books or movies (e.g., “I really get involved with the feelings of the characters in a novel”). Personal Distress (PD) may be less adaptive in that it measures more self-oriented feelings of distress during others’ misfortunes (e.g., “When I see someone who badly needs help in an emergency, I go to pieces”). On average, females tend to score higher than males on each of the subscales (Davis, 1983c).

The IRI is an ideal measure of empathy to use for a crosstemporal meta-analysis. One major strength of the scale is that it assesses both cognitive and affective components of empathy, which could theoretically be changing at different rates over time. In addition, the IRI is reliable, well validated, and widely used. The scale carries substantial convergent and discriminant validity (Davis, 1994), the internal reliabilities of each subscale range from .71 to .77, and test–retest reliabilities of each subscale range from .62 to .71 (Davis, 1980). There is also high self–other agreement on IRI scores, which is demonstrated by corresponding scores between parents and adolescent participants (Cliffordson, 2001). Moreover, in one particular example of its predictive capabilities, Eisenberg et al. (2002) showed that scores on the EC subscale in a sample of 15- to 18-year-olds strongly correlated with scores on a prosociality scale measured with the same sample at ages 21 to 26.

@thabigred said:

The spread of democracy, industrialization, education and greater awareness of human rights has certainly given people more freedom which they are using to develop their individuality. With individuality comes less empathy, it's a fact that ego when given the chance to flourish will trump empathy.

On a less depressing note, I read and listened to that SCOTUS decision on video games as it was concurrent. The supreme court really tore into those studies, so much so that strict scrutiny wasn't even needed to be applied which just shows you how terrible a case they put forward. Scalia's mention of Dante's Inferno(book) in the same sentence as Mortal Kombat was quite amazing if I'm remembering it correctly. I recommend it to anyone, it was written in pretty plain language. Any of the terms you don't know are easily googlable.

Ego and isolation. But what I am more concerned about is the fact that we are suffering the unintended effects of lowering our empathy levels by unwittingly submitting ourselves to systematic desensitization.

I found the appendixes to Appendix A to the opinion of BREYER, J. be very interesting. http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/08-1448.pdf

But the court case wasn't about if video games are harmful, but rather it came to be a question about the First Amendment.

@TheHumanDove:

personal experience doesn't equate to anything.

@Aterons said:

You want facts, here are some god damn facts:

- The human nervous system consists of about 70 billions ( do note, it's just an approximation ), the number of possible synapses ( nervous impulse traveling from axons to dendrites/neurons body or from a neurons body directly to a dendrite/neuron body ) in an average human nervous system is about 500 trillions up to 2 quadrillion ( again, a matter that's up for debate as far as i know, but everyone will give you a number somewhere in between ).

Did i also say that we have millions of synapses happens daily in our brain... and each possible synapse will change us just a little bit.

Mind you, not each synapse can be 1 out of 1 quadrillion, because after a certain synapse happen you will only have a few billion combinations left and some synapses might almost never happen. Still you are left with a number of possibilities of "minds" so high that i cannot write a high enough power of 10 to show it to you.

And up until we can at least have a half-assed theory ( which we don't ) about how ALL of the brain works ( at the moment there are areas of the brain, whole damn areas, which we don't even surely know the purpose of ) nothing, and I do mean nothing, that anyone says about "comportment" changes due to " i don't give a fuck what" has ANY considerable scientific backing at all.

This studies are done by psychologist via tests and polls that could or could not be faked and could or could not be wrong.

So really "facts" about this don't exist. You can say " Games help relief stress, the encourage brain activity and they help kids learn" or you can say " Game encourage lack of empathy, laziness and make kids prefer to slip into their own reality and not consider the one we live in", both point are equally FUCKING VALID because there is no scientific backing for any of them.

You can take a liberal standpoint and say video games should be allowed because they are indeed a "from of expressing something" and in the end nothing more than lines upon lines of cod... much like a book.

You can take a conservative standpoint and say we were better of with them and not let you kids play them/discourage people from doing so.

You can take a conservative-socialist standpoint and say they should be banned because society was fine without them and they are bringing us down.

Or you can take a democratic stand point and say that if the majority agrees with them being "ok" up to certain limits or indeed up to no limits than the minority should accept what the majority says.

IN THE END NON IS 100% RIGHT AND NON IS 100% WRONG.

You're right, we don't know how 100% of how the brain works. We do know some, and what we do understand we begin to develop and test theories and this develops into more hypotheses.

Scientific theories change all the time. But to attempt to understand nothing is wrong

@l4wd0g said:

@Aterons said:

You want facts, here are some god damn facts:

- The human nervous system consists of about 70 billions ( do note, it's just an approximation ), the number of possible synapses ( nervous impulse traveling from axons to dendrites/neurons body or from a neurons body directly to a dendrite/neuron body ) in an average human nervous system is about 500 trillions up to 2 quadrillion ( again, a matter that's up for debate as far as i know, but everyone will give you a number somewhere in between ).

Did i also say that we have millions of synapses happens daily in our brain... and each possible synapse will change us just a little bit.

Mind you, not each synapse can be 1 out of 1 quadrillion, because after a certain synapse happen you will only have a few billion combinations left and some synapses might almost never happen. Still you are left with a number of possibilities of "minds" so high that i cannot write a high enough power of 10 to show it to you.

And up until we can at least have a half-assed theory ( which we don't ) about how ALL of the brain works ( at the moment there are areas of the brain, whole damn areas, which we don't even surely know the purpose of ) nothing, and I do mean nothing, that anyone says about "comportment" changes due to " i don't give a fuck what" has ANY considerable scientific backing at all.

This studies are done by psychologist via tests and polls that could or could not be faked and could or could not be wrong.

So really "facts" about this don't exist. You can say " Games help relief stress, the encourage brain activity and they help kids learn" or you can say " Game encourage lack of empathy, laziness and make kids prefer to slip into their own reality and not consider the one we live in", both point are equally FUCKING VALID because there is no scientific backing for any of them.

You can take a liberal standpoint and say video games should be allowed because they are indeed a "from of expressing something" and in the end nothing more than lines upon lines of cod... much like a book.

You can take a conservative standpoint and say we were better of with them and not let you kids play them/discourage people from doing so.

You can take a conservative-socialist standpoint and say they should be banned because society was fine without them and they are bringing us down.

Or you can take a democratic stand point and say that if the majority agrees with them being "ok" up to certain limits or indeed up to no limits than the minority should accept what the majority says.

IN THE END NON IS 100% RIGHT AND NON IS 100% WRONG.

You're right, we don't know how 100% of how the brain works. We do know some, and what we do understand we begin to develop and test theories and this develops into more hypotheses.

Scientific theories change all the time. But to attempt to understand nothing is wrong

Yes it is wrong if it leads to bigotry.

If it were a room of philosophers, psychologists and doctors with a respectable PHD discussing this than id say it's fine. They'd reach whatever conclusion they'd reach after analyzing the issue and most of it's variables in multiple ways not just screaming: "This random Daily Mail pool says this so it must be the fucking absolute truth!", than they would call it a day and move on with their life and do nothing about it, or at most enforce some regulations like: Games where people die should have Mature rating not T rating or the opposite, games where people they can be E rated.

But this is a bunch of red necks yelling at the top of their lungs that video games should be banned and be "sent to hell together with em'queers and democrats". This is called bigotry and it should be answered with ether ignorance or stating the fact that most countries have a constitution that defends free speech, art... etc.

Instead people are trying to argue against them with OTHER not-proven facts about how video games are good in each and every situation.

Mind you, even if the later are true, they shouldn't be trying to make that point in the first place because the people calling for measures against video games are basically trying to over-censure a medium based on data that is not proven right.

Talking bout theories that aren't proven is fine and should be encouraged as long as we don't consider said theories fact and act upon them until they are proven or alas until their efficiency is unquestionable.

@l4wd0g: I'm afraid the statistics seem to suggest otherwise:

Gallup's crime perception trends do show that Americans grew significantly more positive about the direction of crime between 1996 and 2001. Attitudes were the most positive in 2001, when slightly more Americans said crime in the U.S. was declining rather than increasing. This was at a time when the number of violent crimes per 1,000 people nationally had already fallen dramatically, from roughly 51 in 1994 to 25 in 2001, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. Since then, violent crime victimization has dropped an additional 40%, descending to 15 crimes per 1,000 in 2010. The trend in property crime has also declined over this period, falling by 28%.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/150464/americans-believe-crime-worsening.aspx

In the last decade (since 2000) the homicide rate declined to levels last seen in the mid-1960s
 The homicide rate doubled from the early 1960s to the late 1970s, increasing from 4.6 per 100,000 U.S. residents in 1962 to 9.7 per 100,000 by 1979 ( gure 1). (See Methodology for information on rate calculations.)
 In 1980 the rate peaked at 10.2 per 100,000 and subsequently fell to 7.9 per 100,000 in 1984.
 The rate rose again in the late 1980s and early 1990s to another peak in 1991 of 9.8 per 100,000.
 The homicide rate declined sharply from 9.3 homicides per 100,000 in 1992 to 4.8 homicides per 100,000 in 2010

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf

And a few quick thoughts before I turn in for the night (Woohoo, Europe):

• Correlation does not imply causation: There may be a correlation between violent video games and a negative effect on empathy - immediate or persistent -, and apathy may well be a factor in crime (violent or otherwise), but you can't connect the two just like that. A can lead to B, and B can lead to C, but A to C? There could be another factor leading to a reduction in empathy, such as the act of intensely engaging in an activity as stimulating as a video game. Which leads into my next point...
• Multiple factors make up video games, and gaming. Much has been made of the multimedia revolution (man, remember the 90s?). Graphics have gotten more realistic, sound has gotten more vivid: more stimuli bombard us in a video game than most media (I really should finish McLuhan). Is it that "refractory period" that desensitizes us, is it priming? Is the violent nature of the game the cause, or does it share it with it non-violent ilk? Has there been a comparison study with non-violent games and their effects on empathy? Or perhaps the individual? Which leads into my next point...
• To each his own. Certain activities and stimuli will attract certain individuals. Whether it is through disposition, or through their own neural make-up, some people will "like" certain stimuli more than other (salient point, during the GotY discussions). Is the stimuli to blame for the actions when the individual actively craves such stimuli? Or has the individual been conditioned to seek out such stimuli, turning them into adrenaline, or in this case violence, junkies?
• Longitudinal, clinical studies are still sparse? Though it'll probably run foul of the Medical Ethics Board (and not to mention the parents) when someone would suggest exposing one group of children to violent video games, with a control group that isn't exposed to them.