Opinion: Obama is wasting money with new study on effects of video game violence

At a press conference early this morning, President Barack Obama asked Congress to fund a new study on video game violence.

According to Reuters, a "senior administration official" confirmed that Obama "would be asking for $10 million  for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study the root causes of gun violence, including any relationships to video games and media images."

My problem with  this is there have already been studies done on the relationship between violent video games and aggressive behavior. For the most part, these studies all end in the same result. The result being there is no direct correlation between the playing of violent video games and violent behavior.

Take the study done in 2011 at Texas A&M International University where clinical psychologist Christopher Ferguson bluntly said that he found "nothing" after researching whether violent video games compel people to commit acts of violence. Or how about the fact that juvenile crime is the lowest it has been in the past 30 years, according to federal crime statistics.

So why waste $10 million on research that has already been done? Of course one must look to the Sandy Hook shooting that occurred last month when a young adult male shot up a Kindergarten, killing 27 teachers and children. As in tradition, outraged Americans who frantically rummage their brains for a reason why someone would do something so terrible, look to something that they have little understanding of.

They completely disregard studies like the recent one I mentioned earlier, and also disregard statistics provided by a federal  government agency. They also disregard logic and reason. Millions upon millions of people play violent video games, the most popular being (although I hate to say it) Call of Duty. If violent video games caused real-life violence, shouldn't there be total anarchy?

Movies are also scrutinized for portraying violence on the screen, but not as much as video games because video games are interactive. But, one form of media that are never called into question are books. Books are just as violent as video games and movies, but people accept them more because they have been around much longer than video games and movies.

The other day I was talking to a friend about "The Count of Monte Cristo," the 19th century classic written by Alexander Dumas. In the book, there is a graphic scene where a man is brutally killed with a mace. Dumas continues to describe the death of the character by talking about how the blood squirts out of his face and how he squeals in pain, waiting to die.


I don't know too much about politics, but what I do know is the President Obama is wasting taxpayer money by spending so much money on a study that will most likely have the same results that similar studies in the past had. That money could be used towards more important things like failing inner-city education systems or a more important study on mental health without the video game variable.