Today I'll loke Kenosha, who is a psychiatrist practicing in Boston and on the faculty at
Harvard Medical School. Also the cofounder of healthy Gamer, an organization that uses
meditation and the latest in neuroscience in psychotherapy advances to help video gamers
take back control of their lives. Although great to have you on. Thanks a lot David.
So we have heard this week in the wake of a couple of, of mass shootings, once again,
this idea of we should be looking at violence in video games as a possible cause of the,
the real world violence that was committed by these young individuals. So there's a few
different things that I've been talking about. One is do we even know anything about the
gaming history of these individuals? If we don't, then what are we even really talking
about? Number two, even if we did that would not necessarily be a causal relationship.
And there's quite a bit of scholarship actually about the link between violence in video games
and other forms of media and real-world violence. And then beyond that, when we look, particularly
at El Paso, you had really what were to me, uh, white nationalist anti-immigrant motivations,
which don't know for sure,
but that I've not seen that as a theme of any video games I've heard of. Nevertheless.
So where can we, what's a good entry point for us if we want to think about this from
a scientific and medical perspective to even start considering whether this is a possibility?
Absolutely. So that's a fantastic question. I think the best entry point is there was
a study that was actually published this year, which is something called a Meta analysis,
which pools data from lots of different studies and sees if we can draw an overarching conclusion.
Um, and there was a study that was done this year that basically showed that there if there
is an effect, which it's not really clear whether there is or isn't, the effect is incredibly
small. And specifically what video games do is in a very small way increase internal feelings
of aggression. Right. Um, but the, the interesting thing about the study is that the reason that
the effect size is so small is because there have been many, many studies done over the
last decade that have really conflicting results.
So one study done in 2015 basically, which was a very rigorous study found that there
was no effect of increasing violent tendencies or even feelings of aggression after playing
video games. There are some FMRs studies which are sort of functional neuroscience imaging
studies, which show that playing video games actually suppress our emotional, uh, the emotional
parts of our brain. And this is why like, you know, if you've had a long day and you're
stressed out and you go home and you play a video game, like that helps you feel better
because it actually shuts off emotional parts of your brain. Uh, and so let me dig into
that a little because there's already a lot there that I think is relevant to talk about.
So you talked about the possibility of being linked to aggression in some general sense
in some studies when I interviewed Eric Shara from the University of Massachusetts six years
ago whose perspective is more from a communication sociology perspective, she at the time was
involved in a lot of similar scholarship, which suggested at a very broad level that
there are some studies which show that video games can sort of, um, uh, set off or encourage
aggressive behavior in people with certain predispositions already.
Uh, but that anything beyond that does not seem to be supported by the scholarship. It
sounds like you're not saying the same thing, but you're sort of thinking along the same
lines in your interpretation. Well, yeah. So I think the big difference is that over
the last six years we've had way more studies and, and the simple fact is that they're highly
conflicting, which generally speaking suggests that, you know, so you have some studies that
show that there's no link. You have some studies that show that there are increasing feelings
of aggression, but feelings of aggression also don't correlate to real world violence.
So there's a big gap in, even if you say that a video game increases feelings of aggression,
which is easily disputed. Um, the effect is relatively small and then it's a big
jump to say feelings of aggression increased or correlate to real world violence. Like
so you could look at even something like sporting events, like people have high feelings of
aggression during sporting events, but we don't blame like football for mass shootings.
And so that causative link is still like it's, it's a huge cost at a point yet. Although
I wonder if we could blame some of those escalated feelings of aggression during sporting events
for fights during and after the sporting events themselves, which is quite a more common phenomenon.
Absolutely right. But in that case, you have a, you have a temporal link because you have
sports fans that are inebriated and, and really gung ho about their, their team and then they
get into fights. But that's, that's a far cry from, from video games. Let me propose
something else. Not as something I think is the case, but that I I think should be considered
if we're opening up the store, which is, is it possible that playing a violent video game
could actually be a substitute for committing real world violence?
And I'm asking this not in a rhetorical sense, like is that a possibility? Yes, absolutely.
So I think that there's actually neuroscience data to suggest that that is the case. So
when someone feels aggressive, like I was saying earlier, like when you feel like aggressive
or pissed off about something, playing a video game, like why are they fun, why are they
recreational? It's because they sort of, they, they decrease our negative experience of emotion
in the moment, which is exactly what recreation is designed to do. So I've worked with a lot
of gamers and I've actually found the, so I started out sort of working with people
around helping them with video game addiction. But the more I've worked with gamers over
the last year, I've started to appreciate more and more positive effects of video games.
And I think that that's an area of research which is like completely untouched because
everyone's focusing on addiction.
Now. People are focusing on violence, but there are a lot of potential positive effects
of video games, which we were just sort of scratching the surface for you. I mean it
feels weird to me too to be coming out and, and really trying to expose the, the sort
of lack of substance between behind starting to blame video games as a sort of concerted
talking point for these shootings. And the reason it feels weird is because as a student
of communication, uh, there are so many areas in which we should be talking about the effect
on culture, society, psychology of the messages that we get from media. This includes news
media, this includes movies and TV shows, and it includes video games and social media.
What, whether it comes to antisocial behavior, whether it cuts there, you know, there's so
much material here of things we really should be talking about that it feels strange to
now have to be put in this position of saying, wait a second. The specific link that these
politicians are talking about between the video games in the mass shootings, that one
we've got a fight, but there are lots of other things I wish we could be talking more about.
And I, I can't agree with you more David. So I think the most dangerous thing about
doing this is that it deflects from the variables that I think are actually linked to mass shootings,
right? So, so by creating a political discussion about violence in video games, you're turning
away from factors that I think actually contribute. And even if you do something about violence
in video games, let's say you reduce like violent exposure to video games, the data
suggests that there are far more important variables that actually correlate with school
shootings, which are doing nothing about like what, what would be those variables? So, um,
to be blunt, access to guns. So you, the number of people who play video games and the access
to violent video games is basically the same all over the world. And you can look at societies
like the UK and Australia as being socio economically and culturally like close to the United States
and they have like 400.
So we have 450 times as many, uh, shooting related deaths as the UK. Even though our,
our exposure to video games is about the same. So it was that that population adjusted because
we have drastically different populations as well. It's so, so in the United States
it's 4.43 deaths per hundred thousand people. In the UK, I think it's 0.6 deaths per 100,000
people. So it's absolutely population adjusted. And so why do we have like 400 times more,
uh, like deaths related to guns? If the UK and the u s were playing the same amount of
video games, it has to be something else. And there are studies that show that, for
example, in Australia after the Christchurch shooting, they implemented very strong gun
control laws and the amount of shootings went way down.
Yeah. Well, I mean I think that there may be a relatively small sample size anyway to
compare to compare it to in a country with a far smaller population, but I think that
I look forward to seeing the full data on that. I think you're starting to get to, I
mean, yeah, for me access to guns is absolutely a part of this, but there's something else
which is actually a much more cultural thing which I want to talk to you about, which is
I think that in the United States there is much more of a culture either as a sort of
a definitive thing or as a de facto thing of seeing firearms as a way to solve different
types of problems that is different than another countries. The idea that if there is a political
problem, you might be able to solve it with a firearm. If there is an interpersonal or
a personal mental health issue or or grievance of some kind that the firearm is seen as a
tool in a way that does not seem to be the case in many other countries.
I think that's a really astute observation. And I think that the, so the, where I kind
of go from that is where do people get that idea? Right? So you're saying that people
are fundamentally viewing firearms as solutions to problems. And I think what's more dangerous
than video games, far more dangerous is actually these sort of echo chamber toxic communities
on the Internet. Which like the more I've done stuff with healthy Gamer, the more I
sort of get people who are looking for help. And, and the more I sort of sort of see this
side of the Internet and you can look at some of these communities like eight Chan and um,
you know, reddit recently has been banning certain subreddits and things like that. And
they're basically communities where some kind of toxic mentality or violence as a solution
gets propagated. And these communities are so sort of incestuous that you kind of don't
get any sort of outside perspective. And so people start to, they, they believe something
and then everything that they read and every person that they talk to as a member of this
community reinforces that belief. And then someone from this community goes and gets
their 15 minutes of fame by shooting up, you know, Walmart or school, and then they're
actually like allotted within these communities. They're there, they're viewed as like heroes.
And so I think that kind of that kind of like psychological indoctrination, which is going
on through through some of these toxic internet communities is like really dangerous.
So could there be sort of like a third factor correlation where you have maybe the shootings,
there may be a correlation with the, the, the sort of antisocial self perpetuating echo
chambers of hate that exists online. And it just so happens that many of the people in
those communities happen to also be playing video games because of their sort of societal
or, or, um, social situation. But that is not a causal connection. Is that a possibility?
Absolutely. So, so what you're talking about is essentially something called a confounding
variable, which is something that's related to the, the route and the outcome, but as
actually like somewhat separate. So I think that the, the gaming community and some of
these toxic internet communities have a heavy amount of overlap. There's also a heavy amount
of overlap with mental health that tends to be pretty undiagnosed. And so I think that,
you know, people who spend a lot of time sort of living on the internet also play video
games because that's a major form of their recreation. It's a major form of their community.
And Video Games can build community both like positive community and negative community.
Um, I've worked with people who, you know, have, have felt like the community they gained
through the Internet is really important to them. Um, so I think it's absolutely possible
that it's kind of a third variable unrelated to each of those, but as not causal. You,
you talk
about, um, uh, undiagnosed mental health stuff. So without diagnosing any particular people
or particular shooters, I, let's dig in a little bit to the mental health thing because
that's also a common talking point, which is the problem of gun violence is mental health
and not access to guns. One thing is, which we don't have to get into that. A lot of the
same people claiming that aren't doing anything to increase access to mental health treatment.
And that's a a just an obvious hypocrisy, which we don't have to sort of drill, drill
down on right now, but if we want to think about mental health, what are the conditions
that we're talking about that may, uh, in this world where we take the mental health
issue more seriously, preclude someone from legal access to a firearm. Is there some set
lists that anyone has proposed? I've not seen one. And that raises a whole host of new questions
as well. I mean, does anxiety mean if we take mental health seriously? If you die next diagnosed
with anxiety, you don't get a gun. I mean, that's a whole other Pandora's box. Well,
yeah. So David, I think there's a subtle
problem in the way that you're framing your question and you're presuming that because
you're accepting the premise that mental health leads to gun violence.
Right? Well, that I'm saying even if we could establish that, then what do we do? So I'm
not necessarily accepting it. I'm saying what if, what if it were true? Then how would we
even deal with that?
Yeah. So I think that that becomes problematic because when we talk about mental illness,
there are two kinds of mental illness. Like you can lump mental illness into two big categories.
One is personality disorders. So these are not things that happen to you. These are part
of who you are. So when we think of someone like a sociopath or a psychopath, that's not
a condition that someone sort of randomly gets afflicted with. You can be like, for
example, a postpartum mother and experienced depression for the first time in your life,
right? So some mental health issues or things that sort of happen to you, you can develop
anxiety, you can develop depression. And some parts of what we consider mental health or
mental illnesses are actually like baked into your personality structure. So when I think
about people, the profile of a school shooter, these are people that have something more
personality oriented. Um, and don't necessarily, I don't think that the social anxiety that
they have, which many of them experience, um, is causative. It's a factor. But I think
the social anxiety leads to isolation, which then sort of creates this, this interesting
like perfect storm of social isolation, toxic Internet communities, glorification of gun
violence, and then you sort of end up with a school shooter. So I don't think that there's
a particular diagnosis, but if it's anything, it's probably something more in the realm
of personality disorder as opposed to something like depression or anxiety.
Yeah. Yesterday I was talking to former Neo Nazi frank mink, who in the 90s, um, uh, got
out of that movement. And when I said, what was it that could have prevented you from
getting it in the first place? Because life circumstances seem to be very similar for
a lot of the people that get sucked into those movements and eventually commit real-world
violence. He said that empathy from others when he was growing up was what he identified.
And what's interesting about that is that doesn't seem be linked so much to the inbuilt
personality disorders that you're talking about and seems more circumstantial.
Absolutely. So, so, uh, David, I think this is exactly what, how healthy Gamer has evolved
because what I realize is it's not like a mental illness that's causing this. There
are other factors. It's isolation. It's a lack of empathy, it's feeling powerless, it's,
it's sort of viewing the world in a very like tinted way. And so I think a big problem when
we're kind of talking about gaming and Gamers is that a lot of people are talking about
gamers. You have, you have people like us. Like I'm a, I'm an expert and in, you know,
like radio shows, we're talking about gamers, politicians are talking about gamers, researchers
are talking about gamers. And I think what, what your, what frank minx story illustrates
is that it's talking to the person that's actually the most important, right? It's forming
an empathic connection with an individual human being that causes someone to change
their lives.
And it's, I completely agree with that 100% and that's sort of the ethos around healthy
Gamer, which is like we need to start talking to people who are struggling and help them,
like help them. It's not about gun control, it's not about increased access to mental
health resources. It's on a very fundamental level. If you think about what worked for
Frank Mink, it's an individual human reaching out to him and like making an empathic connection.
And that's really what we're trying to do. And I think that's really what the overall
answer is. It's not restricting access based on a diagnosis. It's, it's connecting to individual
human beings who feel isolated and helping them feel connected and cared for
a difficult thing to do, uh, in a, in a large scale for sure. Um, we've been speaking with
psychiatrist all low Kenosha, who's also cofounder of healthy Gamer. Uh, so great to have you
back on, although not under the best circumstances.
Yeah. Thank you very much, David. It was awesome being on the show and um, thank you.