Social media — to blame, or just a mirror?
As you are no doubt aware, there was a horrific shooting in Christchurch on 15 March, with 50 dead as a result. Like the New Zealand Prime Minister, we won’t be naming the alleged shooter — but we will absolutely talk about some of the ‘root causes’ being blamed for the atrocity. Politicians, ‘social commentators’ and the mainstream media have started to blame technology and gaming for the radicalisation of the alleged shooter. Yet it has repeatedly been proven in numerous studies that computer gaming (even ‘violent’ games where shooting is the main purpose, or games that allow and even promote violence to either non-player characters or other players) does not cause people to be violent in real life.