CORRELATION DOES NOT PROVE CAUSATION. If anyone has taken any psychology class ever, every teacher makes sure that this fact is hammered into your head. Reading through these articles, it seems that people were looking for a singular scape goat for all the problems of violence that happen, but when something happens there are multiple variable and confounds that could be the cause for the end result. The articles against the statement that violent video games cause do not deny that there is the possibility that violent video games can cause an increase in violent behavior, I don’t argue that either, but there is just to little data in order to make a causal claim. If a causal claim is ever made, it has to stand up to the four validity test, which is Construct validity, Statistical validity, External validity, and Internal validity. Currently though, the research only covers statistical validity. So the claim that video games cause violence is truly baseless until more proper research is done.

Otherwise, these were a great read on how humans jump to conclusions and look for singular causes for issues in the world. The reason most people look for the singular cause is because if it is one thing causing the problem, then it is easy to fix, but that rarely holds true in real life. Time and time again, people slander the new because new is scary. New is unpredictable and it is not what we are used to, so when something new comes out and a problem arises, the new thing must be the cause. Like the examples given in the article Don’t Bring a Video Game to a Gun Fight, people truly believe that if we show something graphic, in any shape or form, people will become more violent. Time and time again though, the cries of anger die out as the new replaces the old, and violent video games will become accepted as a cultural norm. It will be a while though before any true evidence comes forward proving whether violent video games do or do not have the effect of increasing violence, but until then, video games are not going anywhere. It is safe to say though that video games are not going to be the last to suffer through this test of conspiracy theories. In time, a new form of media and entertainment will come out and this exact same debate will restart itself.

As for BioShock, as with any game that I pick up, I found it difficult stop once I started. Seeing as how I have to limit myself to raffle park, I will do that (but just so you know, the parts after raffle park are pretty mind trippy). When playing BioShock and how that pertains to violence, I really did not feel the urge to go out in the real world and shoot up things because of this game. The game was enjoyable and game me a rush, but since I have had experience playing other shooter games, hard mode on the game has not been that hard yet, making the rush minimal. I also tend to distant myself from the player once the fighting begins because when I am playing a shooter game, I do not really have the desire to think of the psychological and effects my decisions would have if it were the real world. But because I do that in a game, it does not mean I distant myself from violence in reality. It is more like selective thinking depending on the situation I am placed in, which I think is the most common outcome of people playing video games. In one world they may act one way, but in reality it might be a totally different thought process. This is why I think that the idea of the effect of video game violence on people is overblown, is because people can differentiate reality from fiction.