Our society (and every parent I know) has established that kids are highly impressionable. That’s why so many laws are written to moderate advertising (eg not show a camel smoking a cigarette), moderate content (tv and movie ratings) etc. I can’t go a day without people telling me how manipulative social media is on the news for both kids and adult minds. We casually acknowledge entire elections have been manipulated by the content shown to people on television.

So what is it about video games that have absolutely zero negative impact on impressionable and unstable minds?

Speaking purely for myself, as a life longer gamer (I’m 37), I personally don’t believe video games have inclined me in any way towards violence. I do believe that the idea of handling assault weapons was normalized by video games (it was a non event for me to shoot them at a range when I eventually sought them out), and that trashing cities and committing vandalism became fun. Doesn’t seem like a stretch to me that boys being boys are going to be more inclined to do it, especially without some overarching moral construct to counter balance or (like church).