Are video games and phones helping to reduce crime?

crime plunged in 2025 to near historic lows, with declines driven by post-pandemic normalization, possible effects of deportation policy and reduced social activity by restless youths as more time is spent on phones and video games
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in 2025 after a steady but less-precipitous decline in 2024
Not only is the scary rise in violence that began early in the COVID-19 pandemic now receding in the rearview mirror, but population-adjusted rates of some crimes — murder and burglary, notably — are approaching levels not seen in more than half a century, if ever.Yes, the historical view on murder is less impressive when you consider the vast improvement in medical care over the decades
Burglars and perpetrators of other traditional property crimes are to some extent just being supplanted by online crooks
And it’s hard to get too excited about recent declines in shoplifting given that the deodorant is now behind lock and key at the local Walgreens
But overall, the crime drop is pretty great
If only we knew why it was happening.I exaggerate a little
There seems to be a reasonably clear line from the social disruptions caused by the pandemic and the outrage and protests in response to George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020 to the subsequent rise in violent crime and the fading effects of those events probably explain much of the drop
They don’t really explain the size of last year’s decline, though.

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