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.

Comments

Re:And people believe this ???

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Have any of you ever heard that gaming causes violence apart from dubious research projects that started showing up after Columbine ?

In the 50's, there was a lot of media noise and "parent scare" about how comic books caused "juvenile delinquency". Some comics were even banned [1]. This whole violence-in-video-games thing is just history repeating itself.

[1] Pogo, by Walt Kelly, Volume 11, ISBN 1-56097-339-0. Choice quote .. "with comic book censorship now a fact in Hartford, I look forward to an immediate drop in the crime rate in that fair city" (William Gaines, founder of MAD).

(Hmm .. a /. post with actual references .. how unique)

Re:I forget who said it

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"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around darkened rooms, munching magic pills and
listening to repetitive electronic music."

-Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc. 1989