Do video games kill? Is the violence of young people today to be blamed on the excessive amount of violent electronic games? It's not yet determined whether violent video games drive kids into bloodthirsty behavior, but a new study has found that shooting games don't turn kids into murderers.
Karen Sterheimer, a sociologist at the University of Southern California who has researched this issue since 1999, said she blamed video games for youth violence is very relevant and fails to consider other important factors that can clearly influence the behavior of the youth. young.
"A symphony of events controls violence," said Sterheimer, who began his research after some experts attributed the game to "Doom" blames for the shooting attack on Columbine High School in Colorado, during which two students killed 13 people and then died. committed suicide in the same place, a scene that caught the attention of the entire world, and even more so when they learned that these young people were addicted to games violent electronics.
Sterheimer's article, "Do Video Games Kill?" will be published by the American Sociological Association's Context magazine as the European Union comes. considering banning certain violent games and harmonizing the penalties imposed by its member countries on retailers caught selling these products to minors. age.
Sterheimer's research, which involves analyzing FBI news coverage and statistics on juvenile crime, found that in 10 years After the release of "Doom" - and many other titles with a violent name - the rate of arrests of minors for homicides dropped 77 percent in the U.S.
"If we want to understand why young people become murderers, we need to look at more than the games they play... (or) we will lose some of the most important pieces of the puzzle," she said, mentioning family violence and in the community, the alienation caused by life in the suburbs and less parental involvement as other possible factors.
Sterheimer said that blaming video games exonerates the environment in which the child was raised and also removes blame from criminals. "The problem is complicated and deserves more than a simple solution," she said.
by Lucas Mendonça
Editor/Collaborator Brasil Escola.com
Sociology - Brazil School
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/sociologia/videogames-violentos-nao-criam-assassinos.htm
