The video game - desensitization link ... was it a factor?

An expert on the influence of violent video games believes such alleged "entertainment" may have played a role in last Friday's massacre of children and adults at a Connecticut school.

Adam Lanza killed 20 kindergartners at Sandy Hook Elementary School and six adults last week in Newtown, then turned his gun on himself. He was thought to have been a fan of warfare video games.
Al Menconi, a Southern California-based family advocate who lectures on the influence of media, believes there is significant relationship between violent gaming and aggressive behavior.

"When did you ever think that the most popular game is killing people?" he asks. "You can't point at video gaming and say video gaming made my child pull that trigger -- no, you can't ... and I'm not saying that.

"But I can say this, and research has backed me up: it has desensitized a whole generation of young people."

Menconi points to research that reveals a direct physiological occurrence during a first-person shooter game and the gamer.

"There's a little thrill that goes with the fact of killing -- and in fact, it hits the same mental synapse of the child as actual killing," he explains. "And after it is done over and over and over and over and over, that little rush needs a bigger rush. It's kind of like drugs."

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