But I think evidence that we have, it’s relatively scant, but the evidence we do have is actually that that is far more important in influencing real-world violence.īasically Levitt is arguing that on a macro scale, if young men-those who are most likely to commit violent acts-are kept busy in front of their TVs and computers for hours on end, they will be too busy to go out into the streets and do real violent things.ĭon’t worry–this is just a zombie (thus, already dead) getting bashed in Dead Rising. They’ll stop watching TV, they’ll stop doing homework, and they’ll stop going out and creating mayhem on the street. And so if you can make video games fun enough, then kids will stop doing everything else, right? As Levitt explains:Īybe the biggest effect of all of having these violent video games is that they’re super fun for people to play, especially adolescent boys, maybe even adolescent boys who are prone to real violence. That’s one of the issues tackled in a fascinating recent episode of the Freakonomics podcast. According to Levitt, potential criminals aren’t commiting crimes because they are spending so much time playing violent video games. According to the economist Steve Levitt, the most interesting take-away hidden in the numbers is that violent video games may have directly contributed to the decrease in real-world violence.
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