Do Violent Video Games Contribute to Youth Violence?

No they don’t. Sales of violent video games have significantly increased while violent juvenile crime rates have significantly decreased. US computer and video game software sales quadrupled from 1995-2008, reaching $11.7 billion in 2008, while murders by juveniles acting alone fell 73% and violent crime rates dropped 50% during that same period. The juvenile Violent Crime Index arrest rate in 2012 was 38% below 1980 levels and 63% below 1994, the peak year. [83] The number of high school students who had been in at least one physical fight decreased from 43% in 1991 to 25% in 2013, and student reports of criminal victimization at school dropped by more than half from 1995 to 2011. An Aug. 2014 peer-reviewed study found that: "Annual trends in video game sales for the past 33 years were unrelated to violent crime... Monthly sales of video games were related to concurrent decreases in aggravated assaults."

Studies claiming a causal link between video game violence and real life violence are flawed. Many studies failed to control for factors that contribute to children becoming violent, such as family history and mental health, plus most studies do not follow children over long periods of time. Video game experiments often have people playing a game for as little as ten minutes, which is not representative of how games are played in real life. In many laboratory studies, especially those involving children, researchers must use artificial measures of violence and aggression that do not translate to real-world violence and aggression, such as whether someone would force another person eat hot sauce or listen to unpleasant noises. According to Christopher J. Ferguson, PhD, a psychology professor at Stetson University, "matching video game conditions more carefully in experimental studies with how they are played in real life makes VVG's [violent video games] effects on aggression essentially vanish."

study finds no evidence violent video games make children aggressive

The length of time children spend playing video games rather than the type of game more likely to affect their behaviour, Oxford study concludes Playing violent video games is no more likely to be damaging to young children’s behaviour than those considered harmless, an Oxford University study suggests.
Research involving British primary schoolchildren found that the length of time young people spend playing games, rather than their content, could have an effect on their behaviour or school performance – and even then only slightly so.
But it concluded that fears that a generation of young people are growing up with their development impaired by exposure to violent video games are no more likely to be borne out than previous “moral panics” over television and other media.
The study, published in the journal Psychology of Popular Media Culture, found that children who play online games involving linking up with other players were less slightly likely to have problems relating to other children than those who played alone.
However, despite years of research, definitive links have not been found, partially because laboratory tests into aggression can only measure short-term aggressive reactions, and partly due to the myriad other psychological and sociocultural stimuli that play a part in violent behaviour.
“Society has a limited amount of resources and attention to devote to the problem of reducing crime,” said Ferguson in a press statement. “There is a risk that identifying the wrong problem, such as media violence, may distract society from more pressing concerns such as poverty, education and vocational disparities and mental health. This research may help society focus on issues that really matter and avoid devoting unnecessary resources to the pursuit of moral agendas with little practical value.”
REFERRENCE:-
Anonyms’  18/9/2015
http://videogames.procon.org/
keith stuart 10/11/2014
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/10/video-games-violent-study-finds
john bingham 1/4/2015
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11507576/Study-finds-no-evidence-violent-video-games-make-children-aggressive.html