Steven Pinker (@sapinker), Cognitive Scientist and Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, talks with Aroop Mukharji (@aroopmukharji) about violence and video games, war, and why academic writing is so bad. Listen to the full interview: https://soundcloud.com/belfercenter/sets/office-hours More about Steven Pinker: http://stevenpinker.com/ Belfer Center website: http://www.belfercenter.org/ Mukharji: What is the research on kids and violent video games? Are those desensitizing kids to violence? Pinker: Nah. Mukharji: Or are they, is it sublimation—the idea that you can, you channel those basic urges into safe and socially acceptable channels? Pinker: I think it's, it's neither. That, um… If consuming violent media made you violent, then we should prevent adults from reading The Iliad, or for that matter the Old Testament. Together with Shakespearean tragedies and Godfather movies and much else. Mukharji: Surely reading Shakespeare is different than like shooting people on a screen, right? Pinker: Not necessarily because in Shakespeare you have a lot of violence that is presented as justified, and that gives you satisfaction. The data show that video games have skyrocketed in popularity during exactly the historical period in which violent crime has sunk to the floor. And in the same age cohorts. I don't think it's because that we have some hydraulic urge to violence that has to be channeled through one conduit less than burst out into another, but it is, so it partly these are independent about developments. Partly the beneficial effect of video games may just be that if you’re playing video games you're not getting into trouble in other ways. And so the young men who are behind the screen are not out picking fights in bars or over parking spots.