Has violent media consumption actually helped reduce criminal violence? The notion isn’t as perverse as it may at first seem. Critics of media violence seem to envision scenarios that allow us to vicariously revel in wanton savagery. But the messages found in most video games are strongly pro-social. Adventure-style video games almost always insert players into imaginative scenarios where they play the role of a hero bravely confronting the forces of chaos and destruction. When you play a video game you aren’t training to be a spree shooter; you are training to be the good guy who races to place himself between evil and its victims.
Jonathan Gottschall (via azspot)