The US is frantically looking for the cause of the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colorado. What motivated the bullet-and-bomb rampage by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold that left 15 people dead? It didn't take long for the so-called pundits to zoom in on the Internet and computer games as the causes of the problem. Trench-coats, Goth culture, Hitlerphealia, and guns also share the blame.

In truth nobody knows why these two disturbed youths committed such an appalling act. Now in the wake of the killing spree, uninformed psycho-babble post-mortems fill newspaper column inches and the airwaves. Computer games such as Doom and Quake are training these kids to be mass-murders, and the Internet is . . . well, a pit of evil, these experts argue.

In a recent Gallup poll, 82 per cent of those surveyed said the Internet deserved at least some blame for the shootings. Criminologist Casey Jordan told MSNBC, "The key to this case is the Internet . . . They were in chat rooms; they had Web pages. The possibility for recruiting is just unknown." Mr Jordan's ill-informed views are, perhaps, closer to the real root of the problem; that America's adults don't understand the first thing about its youth. This gap in understanding is adding fuel to the fire of isolation.

"For young people who are vulnerable and isolated, the violent video game they play may seem more real than the conversations at home or lessons at school," President Clinton, said during a press conference calling parents, teachers, gun manufacturers, Hollywood, and the Internet industry to take part in a "strategy session" at the White House. Its aim is to form a grass-roots coalition to stop teen violence.

However, the increasing emphases levied on the Internet and computer games as the source of the problem is disturbing. The argument goes something like this; because computer games are an immersive medium and because the Internet provides unregulated information and communication, teenagers immersed in the virtual world become confused between fantasy and reality. Were the two killers' atrocities; the slaying of students and teachers; the hidden pipe bombs really an elaborate game of Doom? If so, they lost.

In the real world there is a word for the inability to distinguish between reality and fantasy - psychosis.

These disturbed youths' use of technology was surely a symptom and not the cause of this psychosis. For every Harris or Klebold there are thousands of teenagers who use the Internet chat groups and Web pages to express themselves freely, find identification and new friends. It's a tragedy that many of these are now being forbidden to use the Internet.

Last week, Rolling Stone's media correspondent Jon Katz, posted an article on www.slashdot.org (news for nerds) websites defending teenagers right to use the Internet as a means of communication. In the following week, Mr Katz received more than 4,000 e-mails from so-called geeks who said they were being victimised because of the massacre.

Littleton has sparked a witch hunt. Kids that dress in black, play video games and surf the Net are being herded into principals' offices and asked if they belong to any "Hate Groups". Teachers and students are looking for the potential murderers in their midst.

In California last week, a student who published a hit list on a website "People I want to kill", was arrested and charged with making terrorist threats. While publishing hate material is inexcusable as a student, does it make him a terrorist? And who hasn't said "I will kill him or her"? What would happen if we were all put on trial for everything we said? The Internet is just the latest means of expression. Being prosecuted for an e-mail or even a Web page is like being prosecuted for singing rebel Irish songs. Furthermore, much of what we say and do on the Internet is on record somewhere and while a Web page is less private than a school copy book, does it warrant the same legal and ethical scrutiny as a national newspaper?

Violence has always been a part of the entertainment industry. Many of Shakespeare's plays are at least as violent as anything you see on television today. Does this mean that we blame Hamlet if two Leaving Cert students stab each other on O'Connell Bridge? Both Harris and Klebold were also avid players of Doom, an enormously popular PC game. Lieut Col Dave Grossman, a psychology lecturer from the West Point military academy argued on NBC that games such as Doom are turning teenagers into murderers.

"These games are really are mass-murder simulators," he said. "There is a long distance between a normal kid and massacring kids. This [Doom] is the stepping stone." But millions have played Doom and it's at least as popular in Europe as it is in the US.

However this hysteria is nothing new. After the Heaven's Gate suicides Web-design came under the spotlight. Previously generations saw role playing games such as "Dungeons and Dragons" as the evil seizing the nation's youth. And does anyone remember that heavy metal tunes played backwards were Satan's tool?

True, there are websites with instructions on how to assemble pipe bombs - a use of the medium which is indefensible. True the two killers did use the Internet, had Web pages and played Doom. It's also likely that they bought their bomb making components in a tool shop, used the telephone to plan their act and drove to the scene of the crime. Does that mean it was road rage?

One thing is clear. These two teenagers were insane and the question remains: how do you legislate for the insane in society?

Niall McKay can be reached at irish- times@niall.org