Slashdot Mirror
Japanese Researcher Finds Gaming Stunts Brain
Bill Gates writes: "This story at the Guardian describes research done in Japan showing that playing video games in youth prevents development of the front lobe, leading to violent behavior." Turns out what at first appears to be arbitrary, mind-numbing violence may turn out to be just that. It seems this study might have returned different results, though, if it looked at the effects of video games which require lots of calculation instead.
It's so hard to tell anymore
"If Pac-Man had affected us as kids, we would all be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetative electronic music."
Do I use the uzi or the shotgun to clear this room?
Or do I take out the lead guy and then toss in the grenade?
I think my calculations are fine, thankyou very much!
Well, considering that Tohoku University is a state sponsored university, there could be a possibility of a little bias tainting here. I don't think we'd ever hear the government encouraging people to play video games over doing intense mathematical calculations.
Only here, will you find two completely contradicting stories within a week of each other...
:)
Which one do we believe?
Me? I'll believe whichever one I heard most recently. I'm gullible.
from the "until-the-next-study-comes-out dept." indeed...
You sound like the people who keep claiming that global warming is not yet proven, that it is too early to act on what science has already told us. What a lot of hogwash.
The research is in. We can either try to learn from it, or hide our heads in the sand and just hope that any criticism of our lifestyles will melt away.
mod this up. the article you linked to is very informative indeed. its surprising how few people are aware of this.
My cat's breath smells like cat food.--R. Wiggums
Come on. Have any of you ever heard that gaming causes violence apart from dubious research projects that started showing up after Columbine ? It's not video games that cause violence, it's just that people/kids predisposed to violent behaviour like to play violent video games. That's all. In order to fight violence, we have to go after the symptons, but that's harder to do than to blaim video games.
:-)
But I agree that video games stunt the brain in another sort of way, because peole who enjoy playing video games a lot think that LAN parties are the best way to use computers and a network.
has no one outside the UK heard of their reputation for spelling mistakes? Their nickname is the Graudian!
---
You'd think Slashdot would get hip to it and start renaming things to obscure references to confuse outsiders. How about starting with the site's name. Considering the grueling spell check ritual, exhaustive research, and uh, I forgot what I was writing, being high as a kite and all.
That's a bunch of bullshit. There's no way watching/experiencing something non-chemical can actually halt the development of your mind.
If the kids were snorting coke while playing Quake that would be different.
I'm sure this is just like the uncontrolled study of Rhesus monkeys that "showed" marijuana causing intense distruction of brain cells.
I can think perfectly fine right now, but i'm stoned. So, if I can make a point, it must not be killing my mind.
I play videogames often and I'm reasonably sure my straight-A's back up my intelligence.
I remember playing lots of games like Wolfenstein when I was 10 or so....
Knowing how to avoid the blazing assault of a flak cannon will no doubt spare more brain matter than playing a game will destroy.
Really, it just underscores the point made by every other popular article about child development:
If you don't particularly care how your kids spend their time, who knows how they'll come out?
Using the most sophisticated technology available, the level of brain activity was measured in hundreds of teenagers playing a Nintendo game and compared to the brain scans of other students doing a simple, repetitive arithmetical exercise. To the surprise of brain-mapping expert Professor Ryuta Kawashima and his team at Tohoku University in Japan, it was found that the computer game only stimulated activity in the parts of the brain associated with vision and movement.
In contrast, arithmetic stimulated brain activity in both the left and right hemispheres of the frontal lobe - the area of the brain most associated with learning, memory and emotion.
Ok, sounds fair enough. But what about compared to something like -television- that certainly many more children do for many more hours in their youth.
From the article, it sounds like they are saying video games prevent proper development, they don't cause damage. That would imply that something like TV would certainly do as much and more prevention than video games.
And television isn't mentioned at all, nor anything else. There are lots of things kids can do that don't involve any thinking...I don't know many kids that sit down and do math all day
Personally I like to play video games outside of youth... but I guess i just like to be different.
While humans are going through their developmental years (under 18), any influences they are exposed to are bound to affect their attitudes throughout adulthood. When their primary recreation is a simulated rehearsal of a murder spree, it cannot be a good thing.
It would, of course, be dishonest to single out computer games as a source of developmental aberrations.
Television has long been a cause of increased violence, with numerous studies pointing to increases in violent behaviour as high as 150%. Advertising and music present children with role models that are actually dangerous for children to try to emulate, from ultrasadistic rappers to impossibly beautiful fashion models. Computer games, however, are even more involving than TV, more seductive than advertising and fast becoming the primary recreation for today's children.
I say, a society that does not defend itself from the corruption of it's youth is a society in decline. Parents nowadays not willing to raise their children properly, and prefer to use computer games and TV to do the job. It is time for a higher power to step in. A set of guidelines needs to be created, governing what is acceptable in computer games, TV, advertising and music. These must be followed, for the good of society.
If something like this is not implemented soon, we face a downhill slide into violence and depravity, as surely as the Roman empire collapsed into decadence.
Denial isn't just a river in Italy
I'm 20 and I don't have a credit (or debit) card. How am I supposed to play my ultra-violent video games?
Oh right, warez. It's too bad, games were one of the few things I still paid for.
If you have any doubts about the legitimacy of this, remember that they used the _latest brain imaging techniques_!!!
:)
You can ask the author about
what else to smoke while writing these in-depth, well-researched articles
P.P.S. in all seriousness, the blank looks of the teenagers walking out of the arcade has been worrying me for a while...
According to the article, Sen. Lieberman is behind this... why am I not surprised?
In places like Russia they have practically zero cases of attention deficit disorder. That's because kids there grow up not having TV and video games and such. There kids learn to concentrate and stay focused on one thing for more than 5 minutes without it whizzing, banging, or popping. But didn't we already really know that?
It's really simple. Billy stays on game console 10 hours a day, Billy doesn't read a book or play outside or do anything worthwhile for that 10 hours a day. Billy grows older, but doesn't really grow up. 15 years later people wonder why Billy can't function in this world of ours. It's because Billy is still mentally an 8 year old. Watch an 8 year old for an hour or so: they are pretty violent. They mature out of that stage. BUt not if they can escape into Hyrule for 90% of thier waking hours.
Drop me a line at:
Key ID: 0x54D1D809
What a great comparison they did... Let's compare playing a video game to "an exercise called the Kraepelin test, which involves adding single-digit numbers continuously for 30 minutes." Yeah, I'm sure that continuously adding numbers is quite a lot of fun for the researchers, but something tells me that the average kid won't think that this is a good time...
Seriously, this article practices once of the major fallacies of statistics. They do a basic study of some Nintendo video game (they don't mention which one) versus continuously adding numbers or reading aloud. Then they draw the conclusion that:
"But the other thing is to ask them to play outside with other children and interact and to communicate with others as much as possible. This is how they will develop, retain their creativity and become good people."
Excuse me?!? The study had absolutely nothing to do with playing outside with other children. There's a chance that doing just that would be even worse for the childrens' frontal lobes. We don't know because the study said nothing about other behaviors, just playing a game & doing math.
If you ask me, this is nothing but inflammatory nonsense designed to generate a lot of press time and give people a good excuse to take away our fun.
So you've actually witnessed a class in which 80% got A's?
I think the grading curve prevents this. If too many people do too well, fitting the marks to the curve will fix the problem, unless everyone got exactly the same mark, right?
I really need to start checking the links before I reply...
Witness The Rockdale County Syphilus Outbreak. This is not an isolated incident. America is losing it's teens. While parents should be regulating their children, they aren't. It's obviously up to the government.
Denial isn't just a river in Italy
In contrast, arithmetic stimulated brain activity in both the left and right hemispheres of the frontal lobe - the area of the brain most associated with learning, memory and emotion.
Right. I knew a few kids who performed arithmetic for fun when I was a kid... I think I'd rather trust the mad-leet-Quake player's social skills. At least he does some talk (albeit trash-talking).
First off, let's take into account that the area of the frontal lobe associated with self-control is not the same area excercised while performing arithmetic (unless arithmetic frustrates you so much that you want to break things, at which point your self control might be slightly exercised). Second, let's assume - just for a minute - that the areas worked while playing video games - only... the parts of the brain associated with vision and movement' - are actually pretty important. I like being able to see things, and efficiently have information go from eyes to brain. Likewise spatial perception, fast reflexes, quick thinking... all things that video gaming improves... are also pretty important. Even if you don't drive.
Acting impulsively is not a bad thing. Maybe it's just some cultural bias in the study, I don't know, but having too much restraint causes a lot of stress to many people these days, who can't even drive themselves to do simple things like asking out a co-worker / meet new people / try a new job etc. etc.. The only problem with playing video games, IMO, is that if you play them excessively you're missing out on more intense social interaction and physical exercise. That wouldn't be a problem for today's youth if their parents would get them into a game of soccer or go do something interesting with them. As I see it, this is just yet another attempt by the PTBs to blame problems in our world on our kids, and to point the finger at the media to do it. Weren't people concerned in the 50's that rock music would turn us all into anti-social vagabonds?
But why would an acedemic do such a thing? From the article:
"Kawashima, in need of funding for his research, originally decided to investigate the levels of brain activity in children playing video games expecting to find that his research would be a boon to manufacturers."
Bingo. "In need of funding for his research." I'm sure he'll have no problem now.
Let me predict the arguments here regarding this article.
Funny-ha-ha's aside, what on earth did we expect? That spending 8 hours a day watching repetitive, unvaried images of violence and gore would create a race of uber kinder?
Don't get me wrong, I like games. I used to write them, and I enjoy playing them, including FPS'ers. I honestly feel that (partly because I used to write them) I'm smart enough to realise that playing them does actually makes me dumber and antisocial (and I'm pushing 30). I don't think they make me more violent, but my fragile little mind was well formed before I really started playing gore-o-ramas in earnest, plus I blow off a lot of steam playing physical sports, something that GenY is doing less and less.
No, it's not the collapse of civilisation as we know it, but if you're going to argue that environment doesn't shape behaviour, then we have no grounds for debate, and you mite ars wel kil me, cuz i am gay but monkie.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
That's okay. If you're 20 and don't have any cards, you're a fucking loser and don't matter anyway.
Probably a virgin too. A gay virgin. Maybe you should hook up with Nastard. His name stands for Nads + Turds. He likes it when guys cum on his poop and then he eats it.
If it was a serious research, they would tell how many children where tested, their age and sex. None of that was mentionned.
What a pile of horse-crap that survey is.
Humans have been violent since day one.
If a human cannot control their urges, it's got nothing to do with video games.
I've been playing video games since age 11 and I have no urge to be violent against other people because of that - I'm more likely to get violent as a result of driving to work !
So, the only brain stimulation they noticed was motor co-ordination - what ?
What kinds of games were these kids playing ?
Even the simplest game of 'Pong' requires some sort of mind activity aside from motor skills.
Rig me up another survey please - the government wants results !
Pah !
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
Grrrr. Anyone making fun of my underdeveloped frontal lobe will find my foot up his overdeveloped ass! Most of my youth was spent playing Japanese RPGs. If doing repetitive math for 30 minutes is good for the development of the frontal lobe, I probably have the largest frontal lobe in the world.
First they take a bunch of kids, split them into two groups. One group plays Nintendo (aside : should have chosen better game consoles...), and their brains "stunts" (based on instant brain scans done on them). The other groups do math, and their frontal lobes get simulated.
Their conclusion? Games Bad : kids become dumb. WTF? How the hell can they make this kind of slippery slope argument?!
Why not they take a bunch of kids, and have them do NOTHING BUT MATH for a year, and see if the kids become super geniuses? Most likely they will just become (a) bored to the death (b) mad.
Children needs all kinds of stimulation so they can learn to become well-rounded human beings. Too much Computer Games is Bad. Too Much Math Is Bad. Too Much *insert thing here* is Bad.
(Begin Ad Hominem) Maybe the study's "need for funding" has something to do with such "controversial new result"? (End Ad Hominem)
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
I've been playing video games since age 11 and I have no urge to be violent against other people because of that
Much of the development that occurs in children occurs BEFORE age 11. Some child psychologists believe that things like the personality are basically set whenyou are 8 years old or so. Most of us who say, "Playing games didn't hurt ME any!" can't really say that, because we didn't play games when we were really young.
I don't know whether or not violent games make children more aggressive, but it cannot be said that the games have NO effect, because everything we do affects us in some way right?
Anyhoo, the take home message is probly that too much gaming is not as productive as doing something else. Duh!
While i'm not quite convinced by the article, it seems to me that the result of the "test" was to be expected. If you spend your life playing "dumb" video games, you're not going to be the same as if you'd have spent 20 hours a week reading books or learning stuff.
What bothers me here is that the article seem to say that "video games are bad for your child because while they play it, they're not learning as fast as they could". That might be true, but I think a kid needs to do something else in life than reading and learning. When kids are playing cowboys outside with "normal" toys, are their brain working more ? Is this better for the kid ?
As with everything else, the best is to get a compromise between the "no games" and "games all the time".
I think that this is the article's biggest problem. It basically says something everybody knows. You just need to go with your logic.
IP Therefore I am.
And any of this assumes that the study was done correctly. In fact, there are serious questions about normalization: very high activity in the visual and motor areas might simply have caused "normal" frontal lobe activity to be normalized away.
Between playing video games and watching television, I think kids are a lot better off playing video games.
So what would games like this provoke in people?
There's no way watching/experiencing something non-chemical can actually halt the development of your mind.
But some things will develop your mind more than others. An hour of studying every day will develop my brain a lot. An hour of watching TV evrey day will not develop it very much.
Plus the mind is like the body in that you have to use it or lose it. High school kids are often better at math than adults because they are doing math all the time. If you don't use your mind it will get 'flabby' just like muscles. So something non chemical CAN halt or at least reduce development of the mind.
I play videogames often and I'm reasonably sure my straight-A's back up my intelligence.
Intelligence is not the be all and end all of the world. Those psycho kids who shot up their school were also quite intelligent. I think it would be wise to have a little more facts to back up your criticisms. The study was saying that gaming doesn't stimulate the same areas of the brain as studying math (and then extrapolated that into saying gaming won't develop your brain as mcuh as doing other things will.) The study did not say that gaming makes you unintelligent.
For the record, I game constantly. And I don't think much of that study either... (of course we are only reading the journalist's report of the study....) but I don't like random rants that say nothing substantive either.
I am in high school and i play games such as Half-Life and Quake alot. this has not desensitized me to violence or made me any more likely to harm someone. This is just a simple solution to explain violence. Everybody gets angry, we do not act on this anger differently depending if we played quake today or not. School shootings and other acts of violence are not going to be suprisingly halted if violence in video games is banned.
I really don't mean that as a slur - I just wanted to get your attention.
Japanese kids, and even adults play waaaaay more games (console mostly right?) than we do. I'm betting the tests showed that it actually improved their skills, but were too dum in the USA to recreate the tests to find out the real answer.
This is what bothers me: "prevents development of the front lobe, leading to violent behavior." Is that true at all? I thought if the 'frontal' lobe wasn't developed you would just drool all over yourself.
Play games! Dammit, they're wrong!
Get your Unix fortune now!
for a similar study on the effects of reading Slashdot 10 hours a day.
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
I have not heard more over-conclusive research since the report that classical music made babies smarter. And people beleived that one, too.
;)
Not only is this data flawed, but relatively pointless, as well. I think most of us could conclude that doing math for your whole life would probably make you smarter. But would that really make you a better person?
On the contrary to this man's research, and many other people's beleifs, I think that the recent rising in rote-education is a dangerous thing. I think that when studying becomes a more important element than being a kid, you're ultimately just teaching the kid how to be a drone. Those are people that truely don't think.
If you just sit around doing math all day, for this researcher's delicious example, you'd miss out big time on your creative drive. I know a lot of people that are hardcore A+ students, and they're some of the stupidest people I've ever met. Most of them talk like morons, and have miserable tastes in creative culture. (AKA they sit around listening to nsync and watching MTV all day.)
Which brings me to my next point, that this research doesn't conclude very well. Maybe video games are like this in comparison to doing math puzzles, but what about watching MTV all day? This is his conclusion and proposed solution to the problem, at the end of the article:
"But the other thing is to ask them to play outside with other children and interact and to communicate with others as much as possible. This is how they will develop, retain their creativity and become good people."
Is playing outside with other children better for your brain? He didn't actually test that, of course. Knowing the people that I'd romp around in the grass with as a kid, I seriously deny that it made me very creative. I still think it's a good idea to get your kids some fresh air, just because of physical health concerns, and man, nothing beats a good game of paintball for us non-frontal-lobe developed apemen
Here's another quote from dr. hype:
it was found that the computer game only stimulated activity in the parts of the brain associated with vision and movement.
In contrast, arithmetic stimulated brain activity in both the left and right hemispheres of the frontal lobe - the area of the brain most associated with learning, memory and emotion.
The students who played computer games were halting the process of brain development and affecting their ability to control potentially anti-social elements of their behaviour.
This bozo of a scientist has taken readings on the activity of brainwaves during short tasks, and uses that to conclude the entire lifespan of a person's brain development. He also doesn't bother to mention the kind of video game subjected to them (some games can be REALLY boring) or the ages of the subjects, a severe gap of data.
In fact, now that I think about it, this is EXACTLY what happened in the classical music fiasco. What happened there, was a professor took brain readings from college students for a certain amount of time, while they were listening to varying types of music, and found that their mental abilities temporarily rose a bit more when they listened to classical music. From that, he concluded that babies listening to classical music would make them smarter, and everybody started dancing around with their babies to classical music. A truely histerical scene, and an almost historical testament to how many people will accept B.S. as fact.
I really wish this society (and others, apparently) would stop beleiving every single research study that comes out. It's poorly done research like this that leads to things like the classical music fiasco, and the whole global warming bit which EVERYBODY beleives, even though it has yet to be proven using accurate scientific means. (have YOU personally done any real research on global warming, or just accepted what somebody else told you?)
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
I remember a few weeks ago there was a study (I can't find it now, slashdot search is down) showing that video games increased intelligence. So which is it, hmmmm? Could it be both? Does this mean in 50 years we will have a society of nothing but brilliantly insane Lex Luthor clones running the show? I always wondered where those comic book super-villians came from, now I know, they are our children! Now I'll bet everyone thinks twice before "saving the children". :)
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Violence exists in us all, whether we like it or not. How that violence is expressed is a product of Environment or Circumstances, not because of a video game or cartoon that has excess violence. We're quick to place blame for our instinctive actions (which, yes, include violence) on something else to make ourselves feel better. Am I the only one who saw the underlying meaning to the story of Gundam Wing?
Common sense says that a child raised with an abusive parent stands more chance of reciprocating that action that a child with decent, loving parents that plays Ultimate MK3 for hours a day. One is a potential life and death scenario, the other is entertainment. We have to teach our children (as parents, that's our number one priority, isn't it?) the differance between reality and fantasy. And we also have to let them know that the world we live in IS violent, and it almost assuredly always will be. Violence is human nature.
Sheilding your children from violence is another bad move. Taking away that UMK3 game isn't going to garuntee that your child isn't going to see violent images. He may walk into the living room while the news is on and hear about the 13 people killed in an arson attack. Instead of protecting them from it, we should explain to them why it happens and what can be done to avoid it.
The point is, the world isn't a Walt Disney feature (god help us if it were), and we have to deal with that fact. Taking away violent things doesn't make violence go away. Dealing with it head on has the potential to, though...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
The five years preceding 1999 showed a drop in crime statistics purely because of broader social trends, particularly a general increase in prosperity, plus a marked increase in police activity in troubled areas, such as South Central LA. (Watts is now an armed police camp, inundated with social workers.)
Denial isn't just a river in Italy
"i are no need to stop play to game, no are there no problems in my head, yes? it are function very well... You say game bad, i kill j00! i are kill j00 gonna if j00 say i suxx0r, i gonna give you something..LAG GAAAAH!"
:)
/. the 15 yearolds rule this earth. I have no problem disagreeing there since I am 15 but there is a majority of 15 yearolds that aren't ready for the task of worlddomination, these are the teens playing videogames for the input only, and that input doesn't become a very good output in the end, in fact it doesn't give you any real output at all.
That would be me, according to this article, in real life... But the fact remains that I know some people who play a handful of games and still do other things to affect the brain. My friend, for example, read 2 books a week and I myself study physics and quantummechanics
As according to an article on
Go play all the games you want, but for the sake of worlddomination, read some books, get educated...
----
"I believe in karma. That means I can do bad things to people and assume they deserve it" - Dogbert
Kids should be encouraged to program rather than play games. Unfortunately the older generation can't differentiate both.....
My parents didn't let me watch much TV when I was younger and made me read a lot, yet I still had ADD. I think the problem goes a bit deeper than that as I still have ADD, however, I've learned to make myself concentrate on certain things. If I convince myself I am interested in something, I can pay attention to it just fine. Otherwise, I will not divert my attention to it. My short term memory is crap, but I've come to realize that most people have bad short term memory. I think the major difference between people with and without ADD is that people with ADD have difficulty thinking about only one thing at a time, unless they're genuinely interested in that one thing-- people without ADD can pay attention to things they'd rather not pay attention to.
You probably don't have cases of ADD in Russia as they most likely will not acknowledge it as a problem.
Which games prevent development? All video games? Impossible. There are no clear references to the type of game these kids played.
Computer game stimulates only vision and movement... That depends on the type of game and its goals. Even super-violent Quake3, in its team variants, demands a very high level of coordination and calculation. Well, if you don't come just shooting right and left. However, one should note that there are really dumb games around with a very "mechanical" nature.
The world doesn't stop just on one Nintendo game.
I have seen the behaviour patterns of hundreds of Doom/Quake gamers from 12 to 40 years. The best way to drop stress is to have a kick'ass round at the end of the day. You get home like an angel...
What are the real pattern behaviours of people before/after they played this Nintendo game? What social reactions happen? Is there a control group who didn't play this game at all? Or played other similar/different game? What if I restrict the playing of this game for some N period of time, how behaviour changes?
.. most "war on drugs" studies. Basically to sum it up it says "if you play games you are not learning, if you are studying you are learning."
What this guy is trying to say is that every minute we are NOT studying we are damaging ourselves permanantly. To tell the truth I'd rather have a SLIGHTLY violent kid that is social and has a life outside of a book than a completely benign kid who can't get his head out of that book.
> The students were given minute doses of a radioactive pharmaceutical through an intravenous drip
So what's worse? Shooting up monsters on a computer game or shooting up radioactive drugs? Science has always proven that stupid people hit things.
Me thinks the doctors been hitting the crack pipe. Had the game they were playing been chess or backgammon, I'm sure the results would have come up the same. However, they were probably playing some game like mario. Try everquest. Tactics are vital to your survival in the world. Knowing how to deal with that extra baddie (or goodie) that jumps you is crucial.
-EvilMonkeyNinja
-EvilMonkeyNinja
Mild Mannered Host by Day
Wild Hammered Programmer by Night
And then he complains they might not be able to control their behaviour? =)
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
Personally, I think this study is actually very accurate, and backs up simple common sense, instead of the idea that video games cause violence:
Fun is not helpful to human development.
Wrestling, boxing, hitting a ball with a bat, trying to get a ball in a hoop, playing video games... all of these are FUN things for children to do, and it is definitely true that they do not stimulate human development in ways that reading, mathematics, and formal education do. However, if we replaced all of the enjoyable aspects of childrens' lives with constant education and forced intellectual stilumation and social interaction, the result would be a warped, tortured human being, who would be far more psychologically damaged than a child who played video games or did something else that they find enjoyable.
The methods and the data in this scientific study are very accurate, but the interpretation of the data is horribly flawed. They should have tested children who play sports and perform other enjoyable activities as well. They also should have disclosed what game the students were playing, because it is a fact that any child that plays Doom or similarly violent games always inevitably comes across story-laden RPGs, mentally challenging puzzle games, and other games that increase their mental capacity in a way that reading does not; through interactive problem solving activities.
The story didn't say which games the kids played.
I believe it makes _some_ difference whether they played Chessmaster or Quake! As this study stands now, it's just bull. They can say 'Playing Quake
causes this and that..' but they can't make
this kind of ridiculous generalisations.
mr gekko
Obviously this researcher only has a limited knowledge of computer games.
He tested this with a Nintendo - Nintendo has the must mindless, dumbed down arcade-like games of any platform that games run on.
Most games played on a computer are not just mindless acarde & shooter games. Many, if not most, are every bit as mentally engaging as doing mathimatical sums. Think of SimCity and Civilization 2 for examples.
It's not "evil computer games" that are the problem in this context, it's the content of the particular game.
And besides, before laying blame on 'computer games', think of all the other activities that probably have a similar mental effect - children's cartoons? They're utterly mindless & violent, yet nobody is demonising them.
The short of it is, certain environmental conditions produce knowledgable and intelligent human beings, and others produce mindless & violent 'human beings'. This is why some parts of this world are nice to live in, and some parts are not.
How do propose to pull this off without violating the First Amendment? How can you guarantee me that a government that is censoring things because of youth inappropriate content isn't also going to be censoring something because it exposes things that the powers that be don't want known? What if it's not content in video games or on TV that causes parts of the brain to improperly develop, but the mere act of watching them? (A control group playing a video game of Jeopardy would have been good.) If you ban violent video games, how are you going to stop people from downloading them from out of the the country? And, last of all, how do you figure that the Romans fell from civil corruption when part of their empire lasted to the 1500s, and the people who overran them were even more "corrupt" and "decadent" and took hundreds of years to replace them?
The study concludes that while playing a game some part of your brain doesn't glow red on the display....
yep. great study. Then there is this....
"Kawashima, visiting the UK to speak at this weekend's annual conference of the private learning programme Kumon Educational UK"
gee, i wonder if they would be impressed that repetitive maths is good for childern?
The article said that the researcher DID NOT see
the parts of the brain associated with emotion stimulated while playing violent video games as he expected, but DID see those areas of the brain active when the student was doing math. Sounds obvious to me - doing math causes more violent emotions than playing violent video games ever could. I think the conclusions are pretty obvious that we should stop teaching math at once!
biology - necessary if one wants to talk sensibly
about various things damaging children's brains! -
I recommend the book Early Intelligence . That only
really covers early childhood ("the first five years"), but it gets harder to cause
developmental damage after that, so...
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
Anyone who has worked in tech support and had to deal with gamers (I want little ping! Too much pocket loose!) could tell you this for free.
--
enterfornone - logging in for a change
According to new research, the deprivation of video games from children cause them to become bitter adult professors who conduct research that aims to prove that video games are bad for you...
I'm not sure if they can just declare game playing to be detrimental to the brain... however, to the GROWING brain is another matter.
:)
When we are young, our minds thrive on stimulus, and this is a main factor in our development and intellect as an adult later in life. As kids already develop motor coordination and other skills associated with fast computer games in other activities such as school sports, it is probably detrimental because that time could be better used developing other areas that require attention.
I have nothing against game playing, and agree that some types such as strategies can develop the intellect, but kids don't care about their own development. It would be better to develop the same brain skills by playing basketball than a computer simulation of it.
Anyway that's for the growing minds of children. I'm still a fat slob who can get a three-point shot from the baseline just using the b-button on the control pad.
On another note, this is my first post. Yay! Hopefully subsequent posts won't be as retarded as this one.
Ah! this must be why I get to read all these stupid and incompetently written "news" reports :)
--- " Routines are comfortable, comfort is a rut, ruts lead to failure. Failure is not an option."
There are at least a few big problems with this article. First, no mention is made of whether these results have been accepted for publication in a refereed journal. If they haven't been, then it is just one guy spouting off. There's not even a comment taken from a scientist unconnected to the work. Is it at least a reasonable-sounding guy? Well, the article explicitly mentions that, short of funding, he started researching video games with an expectation of getting funded by games manufacturers (well-known funders of world-class psychological research?) Finally, I'm no brain expert, but I'm very skeptical of the notion that generic, childhood frontal lobe activity is sure-and-certain associated with moral development. If it were, wouldn't we be doing frontal lobe exercises each morning? The kook alarm is ringing loudly...
At first, I read this and thought...
That is why I lack any serious intelligence... my career is a sham... my ego has been deflated... I'm ruined.
All because I played nintendo like it was a religion when I was younger.
Then I realized I played RPG's and all the other interesting games too.
*bliss*
I'm saved... a few indiscriminate gaming choices when younger have saved me.
Or not?
I have a feeling this case studies the extreme and not the norm. (as with most things). In any event, we know that too much of anything isn't a good thing. We have been preaching this since times begining.
Video games don't make you violent damn it, and I will beat the pulp out of anyone that says otherwise.
As x approaches total apathy I couldn't care less.
"The importance of this discovery cannot be underestimated ."
The Guardian is an anti-technology left wing newspaper.
An hour of studying every day will develop my brain a lot. An hour of watching TV evrey day will not develop it very much.
Please spread your propaganda elsewhere.
It is no wonder that America has turned into a violent hell-hole, given our predeliction for guns and pornographically violent video games.
"To the surprise of brain-mapping expert Professor Ryuta Kawashima and his team at Tohoku University in Japan, it was found that the computer game only stimulated activity in the parts of the brain associated with vision and movement."
Not surprising, on three counts!
First, obviously 'shoot em up'-games improve hand-eye coordination. ("Improve hand-eye coordination: that sounds better already, no?)
Leading me to point two: Japanese society generally disapproves of individualist pursuits such as gameplaying. The Japenese scientific establishment may well have the same biases. This conclusion will be popular. Back to 18-hour a day schooling, kids.
Third, The Guardian is a left-wing paper with a fairly strong anti-technology bias. So the fact it is reported here is suspicious too.
What I am trying to say is: interpret your news critically. This does not mean the article is untrue; it just means some extra work is needed before we all throw out our kids' Gameboys.
Michael
PS my two boys are playing a game as we speak. I have the impression it's a worthwhile pursuit. They are leadning to talk together, plan a course of action, and they are learning to use PCs. Oh and hand-eye coordination.
---
BDOS ERR ON A:>
All your base are belong to my Mathimatically enhanced frontal lobes!
Where do you think raves came from?
---
You'd be surprised at the broadband connection available to things crawling around in your hair.
Comparing to math is totally invalid. Most children do very little math, trying to avoid it as much as possible. It only exercises the whole mind because the mental exercise is novel. If doing simple arithmetic exercises made us better people mentally, then every cashier, who does tons of arithmetic exercises on the brain every day, should be a better person (mentally) than anyone else. The only other person who does more math (maybe not even) is a math professor.
After playing hours of Soul Calibur, DOA2, Tekken Tag, GT3 and some other video game its name I have forgotten at this point, I was about ready to fire up Tribe 2 when I thought about checkin Slashdot for some good news about Video Games to read this! AAAAARGG!
NEED TO DESTROY RISING!
You don't need experimental science to draw conclusions about certain games;
specifically, the type of games that occupy the user with a lot of audio/visual processing, but don't require much more than "see this, do that" reflexes.
Kids who are constantly receiving visual cues that demand attention to the game are given no opportunity to think about things like "what time is it?" and "do I have something better to do, like eat or sleep?" Usually such concerns are only considered when there is some kind of interruption of the game. Think about some of the older television variety shows that used to say "good night" to their audience at the end. You don't hear those words very often anymore, do you? Indeed, both television programs and video games are getting more sophisticated about keeping their audience engaged even without satisfying them or without making them feel any better. The usual consequence of a mind-numbing FPS marathon session is a splitting headache.
Now consider how preoccupied the players become with game-related goals instead of the real-life ones (such as rewarding social interaction with other people). I don't think that you need to be a doctor to see the problem with this formula.
Of course they do! You try taking from me my Quake and see if I don't get physical with you...
Which explains why Japan, a country where practically every family has a video game console, where arcades are crammed with light-gun games, where pornographic anime is broadcast on TV, is full of uneducated, developmentally stunted imbeciles.
Oh, wait. They're smart and capable and exceptionally well organised. Hm.
Games that seem to stimulate the mind either do it directly (chess, go)
And don't forget Tetanus! This falling tetramino game builds spatial skills and hand-eye coordination.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Video Games to treat ADD?
Incidentally, I think ADD is a fake disease just like everybody else. It's a chance to put schoolkids on Soma^H^H^H^HRitalin, which the schools want to do to control behavior. (I wonder how much money Merck and other companies make from selling Ritalin, too...)
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
It probably is true that action games require different areas of the brain than thinking games.
However, this does not mean:
(1) The frontal lobe isn't getting stimulated through other sources, like trying to figure out homework.
(2) Lack of stimulation through games is stunting development of frontal cortex. Nonsense.
(3) The frontal cortex is some monolithic structure responsible for abstract thought _and_ self control. There's a lot of evidence to suggest that different areas of the prefrontal cortex are differentially involved in problem solving, attention, and inhibition. Psychosis is related in some ways to frontal function. Does this mean Unreal is going to cause these kids to become schizophrenic? I don't think so!
This is one of the worst examples of totally misinterpreting results that I've ever seen. I don't know if it's coming from the researchers or Guardian, or what, but it's nonsense.
Funny how when Slashdot posts an article reaching the opposite conclusion (video games are good for you), everyone applauds.
If my brain wasn't so horribly deformed from all of my gaming growing up... I'd kick their ass and show them just how wrong they are, lol.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Perhaps this explains raves.
-Ben
As a young lad I played my share of games such as the mario brothers and mortal combat. I guess it could have and affect one children bur of what ages? and how smart are they to begin with?
Dont most games involove some kind of problem solving. like how to beat this big baddy? or to learn more hand eye cordination. Not to mention a previous slashdot article that mentioned gaming being good for us.
My friends and I all seemingly have turned out alright whats the big deal. just dont let your kid live on the nintendo or playstaion just like you dont let them sit too close to the TV and eat only sugar....
Ciagrettes may cause cancer.
Drinking may cause intoxication.
Living may result in death.
:P
Is there some basis of fact in these, and the above video games-make-you-violent statement?
Sure. Some people who smoke will get cancer and croak. Some people who drink, will get intoxicated. Although, violating the chain, everyone who lives, dies.
And of course, some people, when logging onto the Quake server and having a railgun shoved so far up their arse that it knocks out their teeth by the Mighty Stephen Hawking, will react violently in other situations as well.
Call me crazy, but I think the sheer numbers of BFG9k totin' geeks who don't go out of their way, and, say, start murdering people sort of discounts this little theory.
(Also just in! Linux causes productivity in workers, while XBill causes dramatic loss in productivity!)
my thoughts exactly!
I know I keep my room as dark as possible (glare sucks on monitor screen, especially for extremely dark games like Quake), many of my friends listen to repetitive techno, and pill-popping is pretty popular (say that 5 times fast)...
To me, it seems like they were so fascinated by the technology of being able to measure brain activity that they forgot to apply common sense to their results.
There's simply no way that playing video games, even of the most primitive kind, is better for your brain than "doing a simple, repetitive arithmetical exercise."
Here's an example of giving morons expensive equipment and letting them make 'informed predictions' in the name of the scientific process. Some asshole japanese brain researcher did a study where two groups of kids either did some math exercise for 30 minutes or played games. The other group played Nintendo (not saying what game). Because he had them on radioactive drips, he could scan their brains in MRIs and see what parts lit up. It seems that the game players did not have their frontal lobes nearly as active as the math people. The idea is, your frontal lobes, which are responsible for learning, memory, and strategy, are what makes you able to control yourself, and deal with others. When these areas are active during childhood, you are developing an ability of control, etc.
Now here's why it sounds absurd (keep in mind that the article leaves out a lot of detail). First of all, let's establish the basic premise for his conclusion: Repeated activity of neurons strengthens their synaptic connections to one another, in the form of thicker mylenated-sheaths, and other things. This is the basic Hebbian learning theory that came out in the 40s or 50s. It's kind of like behavioral theory in a biological sense (but don't take it too far). So when Pavlov's dog was shown the bone, he salivated b/c during previous learning cycles the 'I am hungry', 'Bone satisfies hunger', and 'A bone is in front of me' parts of the brain were all lit up at the same time, so they all ended up developing neurological associations with one another. In a smaller scale sense, it is also true. If you remember an image, the shape, objects, colors, textures, etc seem to be described as a distributed network of interconnected neurons. When you see an image, it activates parts of your brain. So you 'recognize' something when something appears the same way as the neurons have captured and 'memorized' it. But this all mostly theory. But it does seem to be true, in a very basic sense.
So anyway, that is why the guy comes to that conclusion (I presume). And sure, if you spend your entire childhood playing unspecified Nintendo games instead of 30-minute sessions of addition, your brain will come out differently. Whether or not you have social skills or can control anger to me seems like a leap into absurdity. How can you extrapolate a 30-minute exercise onto a 15-year long developmental period that no one understands with psychology and cognitive theory, nevermind fucking neurology! I don't know about the state of this science, but it looks like people are so far from understanding the data that's in front of them (because of its, err... complexity) that the cognitive neurosciences need some time to filter shit studies like this one out.
Sure kids that play games probably have less refined social skills (because games are so addictive you naturally some of the time you would have spent with other kids gets spent in front of the screen). I doubt anyone who's played games will dispute that. But this kind of conclusion, based on the setup of the study, seems very naive and too hungry for drawing some kind of insight into 'today's problems with kids'.
What video games? Were they playing Mario Cart, or Tetris, or Zelda? And WTF was that comment about math making us quieter people? What do you think this guy did when he was a kid? Take a guess...
Aghh... dumb crappy cognitive studies grumble grumble...
If you really want to impress people with your computer literacy, add the words "dot com" to the end of everything, do
Firstly, ignorance of the functions of the frontal-lobe (and all parts of the human brain) can and should be remedied before offering dissenting opinions, based solely on a combination of your admitted lack of expertise and your skepticism. You could do worse than a search on Google on "Frontal lobe" + "Human brain".
Secondly, as you continue being skeptical of the purpose and utility of the frontal lobe in the regulation of moral developement in human beings, consider the sad case of Phineas Gage, a railroad construction worker in the late 1800s, who had the misfortune of having a steel rod driven through his frontal lobe while working with explosives.
In a rather remarkable stroke of curious luck, the rod, which went completely through Gage's skull by way of his cheek, avoided piercing that part of the lobe associated with motor activity and speech. Gage could continue walking, and talking, and being basically a productive personality after recovering from the accident.
And yet, within months very startling changes in personality and behavior were manifest in Gage's life. He became impulsive, incredibly crude, vulgar, boisterous, and given over to constant lying. He became, in effect, a person without a conscience. His physician, John Harlow, wrote of his accident, "The equilibrium between his intellectual faculties and animal propensities seems to have been destroyed.".
Science is in many ways indebted to Mr. Gage's tragic accident. It was because of the ghastly transformation of person that followed in the wake of his accident that the medical community of the day began to associate behavior with biology. This marks, then, the (forgive the pun) 'big bang' event of neuroscience.
Now, a study is released which suggests that certain types of activity (playing certain types of videogames) can retard the development of that part of the frontal lobe which provides a seat of human conscience. Whether the study is perfect science, flawed science or quackery, we have the opportunity to give the matter the serious consideration it deserves. (We can see, by way of the Gage tragedy, that scientists have known for 150 years that the frontal lobe in some respect controls / regulates decision-making and impulse regulation.)
If the study is biased, incomplete or otherwise lacking, find the sound basis to make that assertion. (HINT: Don't fall prey to the seductive lie that the passion of your conviction can somehow be translated into the merit of your belief, lest you make comments like 'I don't know much about this subject, but I DO know I'm skeptical, which should be of SOME relevance'.)
And as for your comment about doing frontal-lobe exercises each morning, you've got to be kidding. I can think of a LOT of activities that can lead to the physical development or cognitive edification of mankind. Yet I know few people who are disciplined enough in lifestyle to engage in these activities on a daily basis. Why is this? Because the work is hard, and the rewards are longterm, not immediate. We know a lot of ways to improve ourselves. Few people choose them. They'd rather sit at home, eating DingDongs and playing Quake.
(dramatic music swells as this lengthy retort ends with an abrupt, ironic conclusion.)
FIN
i tried to read taht article but it wsa hard and i didt'n understad it
They don't say what game they tried, but it was a nintendo game....
Let's look at the trend in PC games. Games are going multi-player-over-the-Internet it a big way. The MMORPGs are moving along at a clip not seen since the explosion of "community-based Web sites".
So, when the game simulates a world, complete with thousands of other "real" people (players) to interact with, what would this study show? I have quite varied conversations in Everquest, and that's just the social aspect. There's also the math (yes math! in the form of statistics, simple arithmetic and algebra).
Then, there's the group dynamics. How do you organize people? Not a lesson most teenagers learn....
Now, we move to other styles of games. Myst, for example is pure puzzle-solving. Logic math and pretty pictures. I'd be concerned about any kid that played a video game to the exclusion of all else, but if it were Myst I suspect they'd come out of it with some improved logic skills.
Now on to hybrid games. Soul Reaver is a puzzle-solving/action game. Perhaps this kind of well-rounded game (I think Tomb Raider is in this catagory, but never played it) should be stressed for its ability to train many areas of the brain at once.
Now, to the future.... What happens when "video game" is an antiquated term? What happens when computers are used to simulate vast virtual environments with social activity, education and entertainment combined? What then? It's coming, and I think running around saying "it's stunting their growth" is not the most mature way that we can respond....
Let's evaluate what our kids do for the merits and flaws of each activity. Provide alternatives, not demands and never forget that you're trying to train them to be adults who can live thier own lives, not pets.
...because: "'The importance of this discovery cannot be underestimated,' Kawashima told The Observer."
;)
After all, Prof. Kawashima is quoted as such right in the article.
Geeky modern art T-shirts
Compare: "Are video games turning our kids into jocks?", posted on /. recently. Search function was down when I posted this so I don't have the URL, but I'm sure you can search for it easily enough and reply with the URL :)
jd
Its really hard to comment on the science itself, since the author takes the data and conclusions at face value. Whats really more useful is the study's publication, if there even is one (remember, even the article mentions that the researcher is strapped for cash). So in a twist of irony, all those claiming the study is invalid are invalid themselves!
As my old Chemistry teacher once said, "When you get your science from a newspaper, don't expect to pass."
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
Convince a man by means of a clinical trial that hitting yourself in the head with a fish for long periods of time can reduce your colestorol, and he'll have a head ache for a lifetime.
... where the "first post" brain damage comes from.
According to a study, Marathon 2 causes a 43% increase in violent behavior in college students. Someone photoshopped a "Surgeon General's Warning" onto a picture of the box and much laughter ensued.
It was in todays NY Times magazine actually. A follow up letter to the editor regarding the Oxycyclone from a week or three ago.
"Ahh, another hard day at work. Now what should I do? Think I'll play some Heroes 3."
(Frontal lobe shrinks, supposedly.)
"Looks like I saved at the end of a turn. Next day. Day 6 + 1 = Day 7"
(Entire brain grows with this heady goodness.)
"I'll hire some cavaliers, they're good at stabbing things!!"
(Brain withers under the pure gaming poison.)
"Hmm, Cavaliers cost 1200 gold and I want 4 of them, I'll have to drop, ERRGGG... 4800 large on this."
(Brain grows)
"There's some troglodytes! I'm smash them good!"
(Brain deflates like old balloon)
"Uh oh, there are more trogolodytes than I planned- 7 groups of 60, that's, uhh..."
(And so on.)
I am writing an MA thesis on computer and video games. I would really appreciate if you could fill out my questionnaire at
http://game-survey.netfirms.com
It shouldn't take any longer than 10 mins and it would be of great help to me
Thanks a million
Brenda
2. Japanese study: video games stunt frontal lobes making kids more violent, hence "dumber".
I don't see a contradiction. Development is simply shifted to the part of the brain utilized. Violent people had better be fast physically and able to interpret visual cues. A difference in population might also add something. Looking at how widespread English people are, we know which of the two excells in violence. Contrast Doom and Mario Brothers. Hmmm.
Now applying this to programers, let's see, I sit in my cube all day ... Oh my God, I must think with my ass!
I've been playing computer games on and off since I was 4 (the first game I got really badly hooked on was Joust on my Atari 2600, back in 1984 or therabouts), so I like to think I'm reasonably well qualified to comment. I grew up with computer games all around me, first with my Ataris (2600 & 400), through Amigas (an A500 and an A1200) and far too many hours spent in arcades, and then into the PC world.
Do you know what? I really do think, looking back on it now, that computer games stunted my emotional and intellectual growth. Not because of anything insidious about the games themselves, not that they were necessarily ultra-violent (be fair, realistic ultra-violence in computer games has only been around since Doom or maybe Wolfenstein - certainly Doom was the first game that made me twitch uneasily when I shot someone), but because they were an addiction. Even when I didn't feel addicted, it was something I could easily slide into, and completely forget about more important things that I had to do. Much more effective at that than TV, because a good computer game involves your brain completely. TV programs just don't do that, no matter how good they are.
Case in point: I started learning to play the piano when I was 4. I made good progress to begin with, I didn't have much in the of distraction. It wasn't long, however, until I would find myself playing computer games instead, rather than practising my piano. Eventually, aged 8, my piano teacher gave up on me because I was making no progress at all. I rue that day now. To me, being able to play a musical instrument would be a far more useful skill to have than being able to set high scores (not that I could much even at the height of my gaming skills - I was always crap, despite my addiction - indeed, perhaps that's what fed it).
Case in point 2: girls and social skills. When everyone else was learning how to interact with each other, I was.... inside learning how to shoot stuff in Xenon II. When, aged 11, 12, 13, they were learning about the opposite sex, I was... inside learning how to play Civilisation. Now, I wasn't completely unaware of girls at the time - hormones start flowing around that age and there's nothing you can do about it. But because I was no good at interacting with people, hormonal urges turned into frustration, and frustration turned into anger. For me, that anger turned into anger at myself and self-hate, leading to a spiral of low self-esteem and depression that I have struggled to get out of ever since. I can understand how for some people that turns into outward violence, they just deal with the same problem in a different way. I don't think it's the games themselves that turn people violent, but the reaction to feeling excluded because they have been playing games instead of interacting with other humans.
Case in point 3: exams and university. I dropped out of uni because of games. Whilst everyone was going to lectures and tutorials, I was.... at home learning how to play Quake and Descent. I would beat myself up about not going in that day, but the feelings only lasted as long as it took to fire up Quake and start getting involved. Once I had done that, I was just too absorbed to remember what I ought to have been doing. Somehow I managed to struggle through my first year (my uni wasn't at all strict about people turning up) but it came to the end-of-year exams and... well inevitably I didn't get the marks. Out I went. That was the final straw for me. I descended into a living hell of depression and apathy for a year, but eventually I began to sort myself out. That year was also the year I realized where one of my biggest problems was - and I finally gave up serious gaming for good.
I don't think I'd mind so much if I actually learnt something about computers whilst gaming - but you don't. You learn what computer you should have, you get hold of it, you learn to boot it and you learn how to load a game. That's it. My computer knowledge only started really advancing past the 'point, click, play' stage once I gave up gaming. The fact that it develops hand/eye co-ordination is all very well, but there are plenty of other activities that develop those skills too, and don't involve cutting yourself off from humanity. Maybe a few hardcore gamers will go on to write their own games... but what about the 99% who don't?
I realise it's probably not very politically correct on Slashdot to point out some of the human and social problems with some types of computing, but that's the way it is. Computer gaming can easily lead to addiction (the games are designed to be addictive!), and unchecked, any addiction is very hazardous. The fact that it's an addiction that affects kids and teenagers more than anyone else, people who are at crucial points of social and intellectual development, only makes it all the more insidious.
CAPTAIN OBVIOUS to the rescue!
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
An article about strange foreign studies with results that match the current common adult sentiment, A few scientific sounding tests with no actual results obtained from them, a radioactive chemical that is supposed to enter your brain AND monitor brain activity, written by someone named T. McVeigh souunds awfully goddamned fishy to me.
This is a joke. Population: Slashdot!
I could be wrong.
The more research you do, the better your hypothesis is supported.
You need to remember that the operation of the brain *is* chemical. Thoughts are chemical reactions, so naturally they can and do affect the brain physically.
This is not flamebait, Slashdot, this is what happened to me. I realize it's not a pretty story, but there you go. It wasn't a pretty time for me either.
Perhaps I should stress that I do not blame the games. I know from experiences elsewhere in my life that I am prone to addiction. I smoke. I have, in the past, drunk too much regularly. I find bad habits easy to pick up. I don't want restrictions on games either - to do so would restrict people's liberties for the sake of a few for whom it might turn into a problem. It hasn't worked on drink or drugs, so I don't think it would be any use here either.
But that still doesn't change the fact that I ended up genuinely hooked, to the severe detriment of the rest of my life, on computer games. The sooner that people realize that computer gaming is both addictive and potentially destructive for some, the better. Once people have realized that, then strides can be made towards harm reduction and everyone can go about their gaming without fear of it taking over their lives.
I recall reading some research years ago about how the Gaming Industry conducted some research in order to figure out what the problem was with online gaming. You know so to improve it's appeal and use.
What they found out is that for what ever reason, game players tend to get more and more negitive in playing. About a year ago a co-worker was say how supprised and even shocked he was at the comments he
received from his opponet in a game of online chess. Where Chess is generally a game of reasoning and respect. But I guess the question here is "Does anyone have any other research or urls to similiar studies?
I think the problems of "computer gaming" and "promiscuous sex" are, by definition, affecting completely different groups of people. ;)
The Pac-Man quote was floating around for quite a while (years, AFAIK) before someone came up with the rave retort. Just because you haven't seen one without the other doesn't mean that they are inseperable.
---
You'd be surprised at the broadband connection available to things crawling around in your hair.
we are siting in dark rooms playing quake (where we run, being geek we just found a better way to run), listening to old videogames music and munching caffeinated penguins mints.
Take 100 random kids who all eat cheerios. The majority probably will either be prone to violence, stupid, or have something wrong with them as adults. Does this mean that cheerios causes these things? Hell nope.
:P)
This is not a cause-effect situation. Kids playing video games in childhood might be relative in some way to violence or stupidity in adulthood, but there are MANY more things to take into consideration.
This study can never be done properly, just like thousands of more BS studies you hear about having to do with psychology and the like....although it's amazing how many people will believe sh1t like this without even thinking about the legitimacy of it. (mainly old ppl/zealous religious ppl
Correllation is not the same as causation. Take a friggin' stats/social model development course. Ever heard of a "spurious variable"???
The article demonstrates just this: that different types of activities in children produce different brain patterns. It is damn far from demonstrating that kids who play quake will shoot up their classrooms.
I suspect that much more interesting and compelling correlations could be drawn between economic well-being and crime than between crime and video games. (Crime up in early 90's, down recently... anybody else see this?) This theory (crime & economics), while it may be faulty/wrong, at least has the virtue of being testable over other periods of time and in cultures where video games are not as ubiquitous.
Apparently it needs to be said again... "Lies, Damn lies, and Statistics."
Although the study of human behaviour and its origins is nothing new (psychology is a much older field than neuroscience), the study of behaviour in relation to brain function is a much newer field. The point I am trying to make here is that there is so much we don't know about how the brain works (despite all the advances that we've made so far in terms of PET scans and MRIs that monitor brain activity). So when people make these kinds of claims ("video games make your child violent"), you have to start questioning their methods of research as there could be several factors that influence the child's mental and moral development. Kids who play Quake 3 but live in a nice, stable household in the suburb are not likely to go violent. But kids who live with violence day in day out, even if they don't play video games, are *more likely* (this is the distinction that can be left out in the more vigorous emotional debates) to become violent simply because they've learned to accept violence as a way of life. Something that you learn from experience is that real life has much more of an impact on your behaviour than games do.
So before we start the call for extreme measures to control video game usage, we must learn more about neuroscience's relation to behaviour in general before we can make specific claims about the effects of video games on kids.
----------
When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer our friend.
Hey, let's blur the line between speech and action enough to include computer games! Stealing MP3's is a form of speech too! Why stop there? If I drive my car at 100 miles per hour through residential streets, it's a form of speech! Support me! If someone molests a five year old, it's speech! Well, it is if he does it in front of the kid's kindergarten class. It's justified! It's the first amendment! It overrides all other moral concerns! So what if society crumbles around us, we must defend the Holy First Amendment, even as we degrade and abuse it to rationalise doing whatever we want.
Denial isn't just a river in Italy
Spam me if I'm wrong (and chances are I am) but doesn't a Labotamy make you totally docile? So, if
playing games=smaller frontal lobe
and
smaller frontal lobe=less violent
then
playing games=LESS VIOLENT
http://www.mistersampo.com
If playing a video game has no effect on behavior, then you'd better phone Procter&Gamble real quick - tell them to discontinue their advertising, that 30-second and 60-second video exposures have no effect on behavior. Face it, corporations advertise because it works, so if advertising on TV works, why would you think video games have no effect?
John 17:20
... is because there's too much money to be made in selling computer games.
Corporate profits from games will fund studies proving it can't possible be true, too.
Computer games cause violent behaviour !
That's why I spank my monkey in Black & White.
:-)
...You are over-qualified and under-paid. If we give you a raise, we will break the cosmic balance of the universe.
this post was a good example of violent behavior... point proved lets all go home now
This must be Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
Post hoc ergo proctor hoc.
Nothing like trying to look clever and coming off looking like a dickhead, is there?
Denial isn't just a river in Italy
you idiot
so go to russia
is it u again rjhn. has this site always smelled so bad?
sick of the rascist crap. quit wasting people's time with u'r junk comments
but maybe it's slashdot's intention? maybe so
No ban in sight, just more VAT on Games.
Chess kills your brain! Mozard hurts your eardrums and Picasso damaged your retinas!
Why should you care what teenagers think? Are you one? Do you want to be friends with teenagers? Do you really think their respect is worthwhile? The responses to this article certainly demonstrate that their opinions are not worth shit.
It's best to just laugh to yourself, and think "This too will pass."
Okay, studies like this really, really piss me off. I recently graduated from the University of Wisconsin Platteville with a degree in Pure Mathematics (with an A/B average, thank you very much). I have been playing games (video, board, computer) all of my life. So what does this mean to this dumbass "scientist"? It means he is fitting data that he finds (which in this case is completely irrelevant and unrelated) to a result he wanted to find.
In one of my Probability and Statistics classes we did a study that was exactly like this one...Except my professor specifically did it to show how fscked most studies/statistics can be...and this one on purpose.
On a very long stretch of campus, on the way to class, there is a cemetary that borders on side of the university. One day we (as a class) sat outside and looked down at the corridor bordered by the cemetary and the university. We counted during the hour and between classes how many girls walked on the cemetary side of the sidewalk and how many girls walked on the university side of the sidewalk...And also counted the men. Our results? That a few more girls walked on the university side as opposed to the cemetary side...So girls must must be scared to walk near the cemetary. Actual results: Total Bullsh*t. It was interesting (and fun) to see how studies like that can completely be made up from erroneous and absolute crap data.
The scientists data we are reading about here is just as much a pile of sh*t as the study I did in college. He should lose his job...or work for CNN
PS-Did I mention the male dorm was on the cemetary side and the female dorm was on the university side?
Gosh, I have been a bad parent: I have _encouraged_ my kid to play computer games! I always thought it is good for the hand-eye coordination and reflexes. Besides, the poor kid spends too much time reading and doing math homework. :-)
:)
I just had no idea that playing a computer game a few times a week can actually stop the entire (frontal lobe) brain development.
("The students who played computer games were halting the process of brain development")
My poor kid is DOOMed for life!
You are right about just trying to let it go. No, I am certainly not a teenager, but I am just completely appalled at the total amount of ignorance and uneducation in this country (US). Being dumb and ignorant is the general overall attitude by 99% of the people I meet. And none of them seem to care. It just gets to me...and teenagers are the place that that exact attitude needs to be changed.
But, you are right...Just try to not worry and hopefully this will get better...
Playing games also adds 10 years onto your virginity.
It reduces your chances of going out to nightclubs/bars and you go blind from excessive wanking...which is why I have a brail based keyboard and monitor!
I read the pixels by feeling them...it's great for porn!
What's with this either/or stance? This makes me extremely suspicious of this "research" and this guy's apparently hastily made conclusions. What about kids who play video games and read and learn arithmetic? I teach my child both and let her play games and I don't observe any negative effects.
And what about games that teach those skills? My 5-year-old daughter is doing reading and arithmetic skills two years ahead of where she should be at this time, and it's partly due to the CD-ROM games we have that teach those in a game setting ("Arthur's Reading Race", "Math Blaster", etc.)
It's interesting to me that the people I know who were gamers in their teen years (including myself) are generally the people who are most capable of self-control. There is also, in my experience, a marked lack of violent behavior in those same people, even those who play very violent games--again including myself. Sure, that's anecdotal, but if this research were correct, then should that not be the case in anyone's experience? I bet I'm not alone in this either.
Something about this "research" strikes me as screwy, if not intentionally skewed.
--Rick
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
Nothing wrong with stimulating vision and motion centers of the brain. As a matter of fact, that was the excuse that got me my Nintendo system. (still in the garage somewhere. When we got a new TV very recently, my parents wouldn't let my little brother hook it up. I, of course, use other stuff.)
/anything/, so for Christmas I got a Nintendo system to stimulate those motion centers.
Anyway, heres the story: When I took my kindergarten screening test, the only thing I was found deficient in was motor skills. (They had me cut along a spiral on a piece of paper, I remember, and a method for cutting curves with straight scissors had not yet occurred to me.) Anyway, my parents didn't want me behind in
Good Stuff!
Hmm. My main observation, working roughly in the samea area as these guys is that relating behaviour to cognition and cognition to brain structures is, basically, more magic than science at the present time. Nothing really hangs together. For example, current work in mapping vision shows the motion signals (alone - like a screen with a mono grating drawn on it that moves) drive numerous areas incluidng the frontal lobes, language areas etc. Interested to know why this lot hasn't.
Part of the secret is that layers and layers of statistics are done on their data before they ever look at it, so subjectivity rules and statistically small but important differences just get overlooked. Another is that fMRI scans can involve up to 100dBs of ambient noise...a confound?
In conclusion i'd wait for good quality cognitive/behavioural data before drawing pretty pictures of brains... the last time i was invovled in a scanning study it turned at the subject's blood flow activity in the nose correlated as well with the behavioural data as any of the brain stuff did. nuff said!
What I hate about this kind of article is that it glorifies bad science. I am not a gamer, incidentally, I probably spend around 2.5 hours a month dorking around with a Sega Genesis I got off E-bay for $15. Nevertheless, ALL the researcher showed was that WHILE ENGAGED in the activity of gaming, a certain kind of cognitive activity takes place, while others don't. The link to brain development, the assumptions inherent in a term like "stunted," and most particularly the "link" to violence (the frontal lobe is the center of our higher cognitive functions, okay?! linking this study to violence is ENTIRELY arbitrary) are pure invention with NO scientific justification.
Listen, video games are what they are, mostly you sit in isolation, or at best in competition with one or two other people, focused on a very limited field of vision with a very limited set of stimuli and response. It's dumb obvious to anyone that if all a kid does is game, it's going to be detrimental to their social, personal, and physical development. They said all the same garbabge about teevee. My parents had this incredible advanced scientific technique to counteract the effects: periodically they would turn off THEIR television set, kick me out into the real world, and occasionally (gasp) accompany me on crazy shit like walks, bike rides, and drives to the store!
Looks like she's trolling for an excuse for her brother's actions...
First of all, I'm 12, and at parties where people do a lot of wrestling, my (also video-gaming) friend and I stand to the side and say "this is absolutely stupid". Second - My dad (a computer science professor) bought me a NES when I was 2, I'm serious. I now have:
SNES, PlayStation (broken...), TWO Nintendo64s, GameBoy color, GameBoy pocket, and Playstation 2.
I also know C, Python, and C++ (not fully). I'm on the vim-dev maillist. I have written an entire pong game (see this page). I would say I've developped reasonably good learning abilities...Wouldn't you? And I think video-games helped me develop that! This sounds like a biased piece of junk.
-- geekcode: GU d-- s+: a---- C++ UL++ P-- L++ E--- W++ N++ o K- w-- O M- V- PS PE- Y PGP- t 5 X R tv+ b
The older I get the more I appreciate the wisdom in "act"... something a lot of people never get to, because they spend too much time thinking.
A conclusion that, taking into account how contorted his published conclusion was, he would have published instead had he actually 'hoped to find it'. Pushing to either end of the spectrum is bad science, because it's bias no matter what your intentions were. He mixed opinion with fact instead of properly extrapolating from his statistics. The fact that he had no control group, and the fact that he tested not one but two variables (video game playing and performing arithmetic) on only two groups attests to his poor use (if not total lack of) the scientific method.
And yeah, I read the fucking article. Thanks.