by Michael Easter

Created on: June 24, 2008   Last Updated: May 21, 2011

I once thought it completely ridiculous to blame video games for behavioral issues in our country. I still get upset with people who look at a problem and immediately push the blame to video games, or music and television for that matter. I remember this became a huge debate after the Columbine school shootings. I heard people blaming Marilyn Manson and the video game "Doom" and all sorts of nonsense and I remember becoming very frustrated. What is it with our society that makes people shift blame? Why do we not hold people accountable for their actions?

 Being accountable for your own actions is something we teach our children. I've heard it from more sources than I care to count. "You need to take responsibility for the things you do", they say. I think this has become an empty formula, a catch phrase for people on the outside looking in. Excuses and blame pushing have become the epitome of our culture. Nothing is really our own fault, the reason always lies elsewhere. I see this as, perhaps, the most disgusting trait of American culture. Our inability to hold people accountable for their transgressions seems an issue that will eventually tear us apart.

 It begins as simple as taking a young teenager who beats another young man half to death. When the child is interviewed, he admits he plays a lot of violent games. Now social workers and judiciary committees take pity on the kid. It's not really his fault. Now other people see that they can get away with things by shifting the blame. The next guy kills his wife, but it wasn't really his fault, he was abused as a child. Now children are shooting up schools. Not because they are undisciplined or psychotic, but because they were mislead by music and video games.

 As a trained criminal investigator, I understand the blame and minimize mentality. It's even a technique police officers use to get confessions. If someone can believe their actions were not their fault, that somehow, it was done because of something that was done to them, they find it much easier to admit what they did. Is there some validity to these excuses for unacceptable behavior? Perhaps there is, in some cases, at least. 

 When seeing young people act out and hearing people blame games, movies, and music, my question used to be "Where are the parents in all of this?" I still honestly believe that the upbringing of these individuals plays a much greater role in their behavior than the fictional workings of a computer game. But would blaming the parents be any different than blaming the video game makers? I think in a way, it might, but at the same time, it wouldn't. Video games are not responsible for the upbringing and rearing of children, parents are. Perhaps part of the problem is that so many parents allow their children to be raised under the supervision of computer games and television, rather than spending the time they should with them. I think this is a growing problem in a society where many of the children live in families where both parents work.

 As I said, this used to upset me greatly. I would grow extremely angry when I heard someone blame a real problem on video games or music. What kind of video games did Hitler or Osama bin Laden play, I wonder? Somehow, I don't think Geoffrey Dahmer was an avid PlayStation gamer. Children simply do not kill people because of violent video games.

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