Slashdot Mirror
Video Games Found To Decrease Brain Activity
Richard C writes "A Japanese researcher, Akio Mori, from the Nihon University's College of Humanities and Sciences, claims to have found a link between the playing of video games and the balance of activity in the brain. It is also claimed that this effect can cause behavioural changes, such as lack of concentration, difficulty with social association, and short temper. These effects are also thought to be, to some extent, nonreversible." I was gonna say something witty and insightful here, but
I can't think of anything. At least I can't make a windows machine stable
enough to run Neverwinter or my brain would be toast.
Huh?
I've forgotten what I was going to say here, as playing Neverwinter has eroded my brain.
*drool*
doesn't decrease brain activity as much as watching tv, i'd bet.
This make me want to smash, er, things.
and stuff
huh?
Waiting for an amusing sig.
And I guess this is true. I'd say a good amount of people play/played video games throughout their life, and I'm pretty sure they're not any dumber.
This comes off to me like the war on drugs: "Hey, people are enjoying themselves, we can't have that -- Get back to work"...
This doesn't bode well for professional game testers. They oughta get some kind of hazard pay for their weakening intellect.
"In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user. You've got your own newsgroup, alt.total.loser." -Weird Al
That is the Most insightful thing you have ever said!!
Haven't there been just as many studies showing the exact *opposite*? I guess it must mean that it does nothing at all in the end, since half of the reaearch shows one way, and half the other. I think it all depends on the agenda the researchs/financers start out to prove...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
There are so many studies into the effects of video games on people - and none of them ever seem to come to the same conclusions:
Video games increase intelligence/Video games fry your brain.
Video games cause violence/Video games provide an outlet for violent urges.
Eventually, people are going to stop throwing money away doing these, clearly fruitless, studies.
Does this mean I can sue Blizzard/Bioware/SSi?
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Fallout II has finally been announced for MacOS X
... might as well keep at it. I was taught never to do things half-way! Psychosis, here I come!
What happened to all that crap about hand eye coordination, and tomorrows kids will have such reflexes due to the constant training on flight sims and driving games. No really i'm not trying to be funny. I know many games that improve your prblem solving and managment (decision ) making skills.
all along my lack of concentration, difficulty with social association, and short temper have been a result of video games! I disagree. I can play a game like counter-strike for hours at a time and never lose concentration. I type to my opponents witty remarks like "that was bs!" all the time, and receive similarly witty replies - I've made some great virtual friends through gaming. Lastly, it takes at least 3 or 4 deaths for me to get pissed that some noob/hacker killed me. This may be funny, but it's true too!
that maybe the reason that it decreases brain activity is because the brain has gotten more efficient at doing tasks?
The first thing that I would like to know is which games were played? I would expect there to be a large difference in brain wave patterns between Pong and an RTS or Strategy game, which would require strategic thinking, game theory, and multitasking. Also, it seems as if the researcher may have had a negative attitude towards video games prior to the study.
"A good conspiracy is an unprovable one." -Conspiracy Theory
Just look at the average /. post for confirmation.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Just who is this Akio Mori guy...I want to introduce him to my BFG...I have to find some quad damage first....ah who cares, ill just rail him
After playing NeverWinter for the entire weekend, trading out shifts with my wife to work on her level 9 fighter, I can honestly say I was totally ready to get to work and read Slashdot and the NeverWinter forums.
Str8Dog
using System.Darkside; public
I've played a lot of strategy games in my life, the Civilization series, various SimCity games, Alpha Centauri, various RTS and war games. If anything, these games have made me MORE intelligent by finding different solutions to different problems. Fast-paced action games might suppress the thinking parts of the brain, so you can concentrate on not getting blown up, etc. That, and thinking too much causes hesitation, which causes death in the game.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
wasnt there something on slashdot awhile back about games making people smarter er sumthin?
I hate to tell all of you slashdotters this, but if you sit in your room and play Everquest or Neverwinter Nights or Diablo II everyday for hours upon hours, you aren't developing a social disorder, you already have one. Go out and get drunk and have sex with some ugly girl, atleast it will be better than your hand.
I didn't read the article, because games have rotted mi brain.
The New York Times found that porn led to an increased musculature in the arms.
CmdrTaco was unavailable for comment.
Look all you losers, I'm really pissed off okay?!! ... oh yeah .. I'm not angry, I'm the minister of death.. Where are you guys going I'm in CONTROL got it.
Where was I
Well, I guess I'll just go back to sitting on my front porch drinking 'shine, tokin weed and sniffin' paint.
Yes, I'm an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.
i have spent more hours of my life playing doom and then civilization then i care to think about but... umm... what was i writing about?
why do i even talk to you people anyway! what's the point! stop bothering me dammit! GO AWAY!
umm... err...
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"During childhood, playing outside with friends, not videogames, is the best option."
...then again, playing video games outside does sound intriguing... ;)
How dare he!
But seriously.. doesn't this deserve a big "Well, duh"?
The Free desktop that Just Works
"At least I can't make a windows machine stable enough to run Neverwinter or my brain would be toast."
Does this mean all the tens of thousands of people who play NWN are better with computers than CmdrTaco?
Well hell I could have told you that. I play them to veg out, not deal with people, and enjoy loosing my temper at something I can take it out on. I also find that I become "SuperNeck" while I play, and the Uberness follows me into the hours after I stop playing. I was wondering why when I was running around with my grill lighter, with the flame at max screaming "MAHALITO!" people looked at me funny.
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
well.. considering i'm only glued to my monitor 60-70 hours per week, i should be in the "ok" category...
h tm l
for other computer nerds, i highly recommend one o' these suckers:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/fun-stuff/3903.s
. . . stable enough to run Neverwinter?
Ahh, well then.
Big Hint - two letters: XP.
You're Welcome.
Could it be that dumber people tend to play more games rather than the games make people dumber? Peace! I know you're all gamers ;)
Ways to capitalize on this situation:
1) Sue Squaresoft / Nintendo / ID / Insert your favorite video game manufacturer here for the pain and suffering I experienced in high school for a lack of social skills (I didn't see no warning label)!
2) Sue any employer for refusing to hire me on the grounds on a lack of social skills. I can now call it a handicap.
3) Workers Comp!
reading this article really sent something of a chill up my spine. i have done nothing but play games since i was about 12, and some of those traits mentioned do apply to me.
causal fork? maybe. am i going to stop playing allied assault before i get out of that godd*mn exploding factory alive? not bloody likely.
go get it
I can say the only negative effects on me video games have caused are repetive stress aches in my thumbs. :(
::.. check out some Cell Phone Reviews
Not to get defencive here, but TV is much more brain damaging then any computer game has ever seen.
As well, follow the ying yang - balance is paramount.
The article talks about how this guy has found a "cause"; however, the researcher conducted a survey. That means he went out and asked a bunch of people: "How often do you play video games and for how long?" and then he checked their brainwaves and behavior. You don't get a causal conclusion out of that. The best you get is a correlation.
It would be more fair to say that he's found that people who play more games have less brain activity.
Who knows? Maybe the cause is the other way around: people with low brain activity play more video games?
I have been playing video games since early Atari (around age 7-8), and since then have played most major console releases. But (gasp), I am also a devoted reader (Stephen King, Tracy Hickman) plus run a quite deep and well-thought about D&D campaign with a ton of creativity. I live in a very rural area, where the r's are drawn out and high speed internet access is the stuff of fantasy. Had it not been for gaming, I am quite sure I would have turn into a beer swillin' (wait, I drink... nevermind) redneck with EXTREMELY low creativity. How long were these people studied, what type of gaming was used, etc. I find this report full of wholes and quite candidly, insulting.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong (basks in roar of crowd)
Jesus Saves! And takes half damage (shouldn't the Son of God have improved evasion?)
20 console systems and 100 games... for 'research': $9000
3 years salary for 10 scientists: $1,800,000
Miscellaneou research costs: $400,000
Discovering that sitting in a lab all day playing video games just might result in social issues?
Priceless.
There are some things money can't buy... For everything else; there's research grants.
Imagine a Beowolf Cluster of THESE!!!
Puzzle games have long proved otherwise. Just ask anyone who's played Tetris, The Incredible Machine, or, for the kids, Math Munchers, Oregon Trail (Pretty much anything originally by MECC), and the Where the Fsck is Carmen Sandiego series.
:)
However, it's well known that video games can increase your physical activity, which in turn boosts your mental capacity, aptitude, and reaction time.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
I thought that people who were already like this were the ones who were primarily attracted to video games (and, quite likely, Internet Chat rooms) ..
I think they're diagnosing a pre-existing condition here!
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Frankly I don't think they can possibly generalize "computer games" as one category like they do, secondly, do you think that in a game, where you react to circumstances (thus thinking and making use of your brain) you get stupid, while watching TV, which requires no thinking at all (I know some of you think while watching TV... when will my sausage be done...) but hey =P
When you become one with the world
grasshopper
there will be no neurotic conflict
grasshopper
One will never go back
grasshopper
One will realize that the pratlings of
others are merely time consuming
grasshopper
You have allways known what others are going to say
grasshopper
All that is
is to defend the universe
grasshopper
SPQR
Is it the same guy who says that playing a witty sport such as football makes you more clever ?
I don't buy it, sorry.
theefer
I pretty sure he meant Microsoft Windows, not video games.
So after playing video games, peoples brains don't need to work as hard?
They're just playing the wrong games. I have to use my brainpower and creativity to play my favorite game: KarmaQuest on Slashdot. If I just sit back don't think and post any microsoft rules old mpaa rocks crap lunix suxxx0rz, then I lose points.
On the other hand, if I spend some time and get creative and construct a witty, self-referential post that admits that it's there to whore karma, then I can win a lot of points.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
If they're continually playing games, then which period would that be?
Of course, here we see an article of undetermined scientific merit, based upon the research of an individual (with a specific agenda) that has yet to see even a basic peer review. Where have we seen that type of thing before?
Take it as you will.
after a long day thinking about schemas, dependencies, learning the latest sdk, etc...i *want* to lower my brain activity. most people just watch tv. at least i'm interacting with my medium...
eleven plus two / twelve plus one
I would like to take this opportunity to donate my brain in the name of science
Please, don't thank me, i'm doing it for the good of the human race.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Video games rot your brain, and bleaching hair causes brain damage. Since today's kids love both of these, they may be so out of it by age forty that they need to be put in nursing homes!
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
At the start of the article...
;)
Prolonged time playing video games could cause people to lose concentration, get angry easily and have trouble associating with others, a Japanese professor's research has suggested.
and a little further down.. Many of the people in this group told researchers that they got angry easily, couldn't concentrate, and had trouble associating with friends
Interestingly, the article doesn't say that the study itself concludes ".. that playing video games could cause people to lose concentration, get angry easily and have trouble associating with others.. ", it just says that the research 'suggests' it -- suggests to who? - looks to me a little bit like the lose concentration/anger easy/trouble associating bit was something the people writing the article threw in. (i.e., it doesn't say 'the study found that' but 'Many people in this group told researchers', which to me is -a lot- different - 'many people say xxx' doesn't prove xxx )
The whole article ends with "During childhood, playing outside with friends, not videogames, is the best option.". well, duh.
Code or be coded.
Slightly off topic, and perhaps better suited to the NWN forums, but I have come up with a partial solution to the NWN problems (at least it seems to have done the trick for the 3 machines that I have tried it on)
;)
Basically, you should disable Hardware Audio. It seems that the PCI bus is getting hammered beyond belief with the calls to both video and audio cards for all the positional sound. By disabling the hardware audio, you get the CPU to do the positional audio, and the PCI bus gets to concentrate on the eye candy. I have had good success with this on a Tbird 1.2, a PIII 7000 and a Duron 1000, which would lock up and stutter constantly, now doing so only once in a very long while. Dropping your visual level will obviously help a bit too.
The ultimate solution (which I tested yesterday at work) was to install it on a Dual P4 Xeon 2Ghz system with 2 gig of RAM on a dual pci bus motherboard, using a Geforce4 4600. It actually becomes pretty damn playable then!
"I'm tired of all this 'Aren't humanity great' bullshit. We're a virus with shoes" - Bill Hicks
Funny, I love video games and Starwars but don't indulge b'se of their addictive nature.
Yeah basically anybody who uses Windows is better. Simply because they aren't smelly open sores hippies who can't get laid.
moderators: everything I say is supposed to be funny. don't be upset if it's over your head.
After reading the article a couple of times trying to get past the poor Japanese->English translation I was left wondering if the actualt research makes any distinction between types of game. I would expect a game like Tetris would require very different brain activity from Quake, which in turn would be very different than that used to play EverQuest.
A category like "video games" is so broad it may be meaningless. It will be interesting to see what the research actually says, rather than the press release about it.
Sailing over the event horizon
hmm i'd try it but my girlfriend would probably be angry... although i'd probably have a chance if i did it while she was playing d2
...now it all makes sense, I think...
actually did they make sure to note wether the short-tempered gamers were using a windoze box or not?
Jesus saves souls and redeems them for valuable cash prizes
-- I don't know, and I don't care.
my ADD.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Just found this story in the /. archive about a different Japanese research project stating that gaming stunts the brain.
-- Find the Truth...
We've heard in the past that many people who have so-called "abnormal" brain physiology (Asperger's, etc) seem to be attracted to technical professions.
Is it possible that people who _naturally_ have these brain wave patterns find it easier to understand, play and emmerse themselves in videogames?
At least I can't make a windows machine stable enough to run Neverwinter or my brain would be toast
Hey, Taco, get a Mac.
Ok, now wait a minute...
Why can't people just make a decision about gaming and stick with it? First gaming is bad. It breeds corruption and make children murder their teachers. Then gaming is good for you. Japanese children play role playing games and it makes them smarter. It builds cognitive thinking skills and the ability to reason. But now it's bad for you, again?!?!
Make up your minds.
JJ
First up, I wish there was a way of rating the researchers... We've had plenty of studies saying that video game playing produces beneficial results too. The problem is that these things are all reported as just because they are the most recent report, they must be right. They have no weighting based on the thoroughness of the research. Who's to say that this was a particularly well run trial?
But I digress...
"Those in the half-videogame category, who spent between one and three hours each day playing games for three to four days a week, had roughly equal alpha and beta wave activity before they started playing a game."
So that sounds like a pretty normal level of playing games, even high... and that has no adverse effect... good... I shall remain 'normal'
But
"Beta wave activity in people in the videogame group, who spent between two and seven hours each day playing games, was constantly near zero even when they weren't playing, showing that they hardly used the prefrontal regions of their brains."
I would have thought that the difference between 2 and 7 hours a day is pretty huge... The 'half-videogame' group got between 1-3 hours 3-4 days a week... so hang on... the half-videogame group could have up to 12 hours a week of game playing, while the videogame group could have just 14 hours a week playing... that's only 2 hours difference a week... hmmmm. (Ok, I'm taking the extreme cases in each group, but I would have thought a better split?)
"Many of the people in this group told researchers that they got angry easily, couldn't concentrate, and had trouble associating with friends."
OK, but what about the other groups? What about the types of people chosen for each group? Were they already predisposed to such behaviour? Did they choose a good even sample group across each section to get a nice baseline?
We always get a tiny bit of the story with these articles... we hardly ever get to know how well the research was conducted, whether the researcher went into it already biased... or what.
However... I do like one part of it...
"Those in the visual group, who were used to visual stimulation, such as from television, easily developed videogame-type brains."
Now that's just plain COOL! I wanna Videogame brain! Will my cortex look like a Sim City map? Will my neurons behave like units from Warcraft or C&C? Will my frontal lobe be texture mapped and antialiased?
Is the public benefiting from crack pot idiot studies to realize "playing video for long hours by oneself is bad." A parent who balances a kids activity is the only real indicator. If the parents encourage critical and creative thought, the kid will do just that. If a parent plays with a kid and then finds all sorts of creative ways to tap into the kids excitement, like teaching them to draw the characters in the game or better yet to invent their own game. The game is a bonding experience and a tool for jumping into other more creative activities.
Bad science is all it is. Makes me wonder how good of a parent this researcher is if he can't even come to this simple and obvious conclusion.
people have played games for millenia and now they want to say that because it's on a screen and digital in nature that somehow changes things... sounds blah to me :)
It is also claimed that this effect can cause behavioural changes, such as lack of concentration, difficulty with social association, and short temper.
Hey! That's 98.999998% of my brian activisminility! Cuz this thing with boobies once told me i was stupid and so i killed it!
This message was brought to you by the death of 30 brain cells.
This is the second completely ludicrous science article I've read at this particular website in the last few weeks. It seems like they specialize in sensationalizing marginal psychological research results into weird moralistic conclusions. Cross reference this article about how fast food is turning japanese girls into sex maniacs:
p hs .html
http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/waiwai/0206/020619nym
Does anyone else remember the article on slashdot a few months ago that said video games actually stimulate the mind and promote problem solving? Seems we always end up going in circles...
Nothing a little pill won't help.
He divided the brain activity of participants into four categories -- naming the activity normal, visual, half-videogame, and videogame.
The beta waves in the brains of those in the normal category, who rarely played video games, were always stronger than the alpha waves their brains emitted, and little change was shown when they started playing a game.
Those in the half-videogame category, who spent between one and three hours each day playing games for three to four days a week, had roughly equal alpha and beta wave activity before they started playing a game. However, once they started playing, the beta waves rapidly decreased, falling below the level of the alpha waves.
Beta wave activity in people in the videogame group, who spent between two and seven hours each day playing games, was constantly near zero even when they weren't playing, showing that they hardly used the prefrontal regions of their brains.
Since they categorised the testees based on pre-existing videogame habits, they cannot say whether the decreased beta waves were a symptom of extended videogame playing OR if those with normally lower beta activity simply tend to be more likely to spend more time than average playing games. This test shows some interesting results without doing much to identify exactly what is causing those results.
It's as if the study got a group of kids and divided them up into 3 groups: ones wearing Pokemon shirts, ones wearing Barbie shirts, and ones wearing Metallica shirts. The test reveals that when given a test to memorize lyrics to a random Metallica song, not only did the kids with Metallica shirts show better memorization ability, but were even able to recite lyrics not given in the test. Conclusion: wearing a Metallica shirt will dramatically increase your memory! Bad example, but it shows just how useless conclusions based on valid data can be drawn if the test and control groups are poorly selected and controlled, as were the groups in this video game study.
Right. No, your other right. No, the other other right.
These are EEG recordings. They placed scalp electrodes on the heads of these people while playing and not playing video games. The vast majority of these signals are close to 10 Hz, as was seen in the subjects.
The differences occur in the higher frequency range. These ranges are associated with strenuous attentional focus, and were highest in normals, near zero in heavy game players.
All this is restricted to prefrontal areas, which are the highest abstractest most creative planning areas.
WAY blown out of proportion.
Some background on brain waves from EEG
Also, this is being presented at the Society for Neuroscience conference, so it is quite possible VERY preliminary.
If you can't make a Windows machine stable enough to run Neverwinter Nights, you should give your computer away.
Entropy just isn't what it used to be.
It means Taco is one of those idiots that is still running a P133 and a Trident 512k video card and expecting to run the latest games. Exactly the kind of Linux-using-wants-everything-for-free loser that causes game companies to run from the platform like the plague.
MAYBE, all it does, is bring out either the dumbass, or the genious in us. No?
Despite what half of the comments here would like to argue against, the article makes NO negative claims about intelligence level. Rather they're claiming it effects the emotions of a person.
...Also, I didn't know Buggalo could fly.
Just because we feel emotionally charged against the findings doesn't make them any less valid. Only poor experimental set-up or design flaw can do that. So let's find them here. I noticed that the results will be at a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, which definitely makes it credible to a point. What we need here is hard scientific evidence to refute these claims. What we don't need is a whole bunch of anecdotal stories that have no real method of organization.
I play games, and I want to know if they harm me or not. Smoking 40 years ago was being advertised as healthy and even got endorsement from doctors. Hell, they even made asbestos filters that was supposed to make the cigarettes even more flavourful. But good science ultimately prevailed in that case. Let's make it work here.
At the age of 17 my IQ was 126. Now 6 years later and many games played it is 115. Of course I have been playing a lot of Leisure Suit Larry so that may have a lot to do with it
..."All your brain are belong to us!"
What a name, Akio Mori ...eating too little food can lead to recessed brain activity, news at 11!
Anagrams of Akio Mori...
Mook Aiir
Moo Aiki
Mor Kar
Rooki Mao
A knee jerk cometh
Ok, buddy. Now you have pissed me off. Don't make me jump across the big pond and kick your sushi eating ass.
Uh, what was this article about?
Street Fighter (and the infinite variants) can hardly be good for one's brain.
My high school put Street Fighter in the library as a fundraiser... They yanked it because the library became very empty, that and the fact that people wouldn't leave their games when the fire alarm went, would skip class, and was actually against the city's by-law.
I still believe it was the library and the sudden drop in marks of some students who were usually excellent students...
Tournament Management Online &
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/05/08/153022 2&mode=nested&tid=159 ;-)
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
I was going to make some witty comment but I can't think of one...
Apparently I've been playing too many video games.
Wait, what were we talking about again? Oh well I forgot, back to my game. ;)
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Oh bother.
The only study that I will believe is one that make a positive correlation between playing video games and a decrease in one's ability to spell correctly.
This study would then be followed by one involving video games and grammar.
Didn't I read an article a couple of weeks (months?) ago that said the exact oposite. Something to the effect that video games boosted cognitive skills and what not. I do believe I read it here though I can't find it in the archives.
It is also claimed that this effect can cause behavioural changes, such as lack of concentration, difficulty with social association, and short temper.
Computer games are an exercise in stimulation, hence the lack of concentration when that stimulus is absent. This is very reminiscent of the "MTV generation" claims. I'll let the difficulty with social association when stuck in front of the computer for hours pass as self-evident. This leads to the short-temper. It can be caused by frustration in not getting your own way with immediate gratification (linked to first point). In real life, someone can't just type "stfu gayl0rd" to immediately close down a confrontation. They also can't evade or ignore confrontation in real life, which is easily done in a game. In fact it's not solely game related really. I've found I've become more short-tempered since I started working from home, as opposed to when I worked in an office. Mixing with other people is the only real cure. As for the non-reversible comment, I don't believe that. Anything you train yourself into you can retrain yourself out it.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
He divided the brain activity of participants into four categories -- naming the activity normal, visual, half-videogame, and videogame.
He probably should have made more groups such as violent videogames, strategy videogames, etc. No where in the article did I see any reference to analyzing the genre of videogame on the subject's brainwaves. It would be interesting to see how/if the brainwave patterns changed when playing Duke Nukem IV: Death To Everyone, WWF Smackdown Vol. 7: The Women, and Pikachu's Happy Hopscotch. If there was no difference, then perhaps the results really don't mean shit.
And the article never did say what was the "visual" group.
GMD
watch this
Not to mention that game interfaces respond a hell of a lot better than anything else out there. One of the first things that video games helped me with is mouse click accuracy. Before long, my mouse was arriving at it's destination before the window popped up.
Now, whenever I'm waiting for something to load, I need something else to 'distract' me. That's how I manage to stay so active on Slashdot, heh. I'm serious. When you're a Lightwave user, you've got time to burn.
"Me lose brain cells? Uh oh."
-Homer Simpson
"Failure of Windows operating systems is extremely rare. If it happens, it is usually due to operating system file c
Yoov art Vun Stoovid Muverduvin cowvard
Ive shalv elivinate yorv vost
yoo vlack suvuna vitch.
How can the brain be more effecient at being creative? If you read the article:
"...it was found that the longer people spent playing video games, the less activity they showed in the prefrontal region of their brains, which governs emotion and creativity."
I always had this delusion that creativity wasn't effecient, but that it was something different and varied. I guess I could be wrong though.
You zap the moderators with a wand of humor! The moderators resist!
So that's what's wrong with me! Quick, I need a lawyer. Who do I sue first?
My fear is definitely a factor in playing up this phenomenon in my head, but as a nerd, this is all I have to lose, aside from the pimples on my face.
Regardless, let me shower you with background.. As a hardcore powergamer, I have spent a vast portion of my pre-teen (starting at 8) to teen years (I'm 17 now) mastering all types of video games... FPSs, RPG's, strategy, turn based... you name it, I probably have it down pat. I used to play Quake 2/3 so much that I could play while watching TV and still defeat most foes (Once, I 'reflexively' shot an opponent in the head with a railgun without knowing he was there). That scary... it got to the point where I played videogames about 6-10 hours a day... not that I harbored any objections to interaction, it's just that there was simply nothing to do... if there was someone to go out with, I was there.
But I digress, my rambling is itself a mark of this phenomenon. On to the problem... before, I had no problems with focus and concentration - these problems only rear their ugly heads at a later age. At the ripe age of 17, I routinely forget what I am doing at the moment, and my thinking routinely falls into a trance like state much as if I was playing Quake. For example, I may be thinking of looking up a listing on tvguide online, but by the time I open up the browser window, I don't know where I am going. When this happens every day, it casts a shadow on my abilities.
My abilities.. my essay writing reflects this as well. I'm not a bad writer where diction and sentence structure are concerned, but writing is sporadic since I rarely think more than a sentence or two ahead. So while peers are scribbling away without stop, I have to stop after every sentence, often spacing out for a second or two, before trying my hand at it again.
Mind you, I'd never had these problems before I started playing hardcore. Sort of an evolved ADD.
*sigh*, back to powerleveling my Meridian59 uber character.
I thought reading slashdot caused decreased brain activity, especially considering how many dumb comments get moderated +5, funny.
enough to FlameCrypt4 by Flame Entertainment (a Java program) in Windows without decription anomolies on any text over 20 characters in length?
In fact, there were so many problems, that we had to rerelease FlameCrypt 3 for our windows users. We are now in the process of porting the visual basic encryption code to Java, and making the encryption library J++ compatible so that it can be compiled as an activex control and used with the old interface.
Why the hell can't M$ conform to standards. FC4 works perfectly on Linux and OS X, and we have had no complaints from any operating sytem other than Windows.
Oh well, my rant is over. I need to get back to work modifying FC4 to work with Windows. Or blowing my braincells away in FF-VIII on my playstation through xawtv. The latter will certainly frustrate me less.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
7 hrs per day playing video games, I could see it if it was your job. I'm thinking that might 8 hours a day at work might be too much. Cut down on TV, /., porn, etc. What would I do with my time? My guess is that the guy across the street who spends every waking moment working on his lawn has as big as a problem as a kid on his Playstation all day long.
Some people have a way with words, others not have way.
I've been playing video games for over 25 years, and Guess what... I can multitask better than most people, and have better concentration. Have 10 terminal sessions open, still listening to Euro dance, chatting on irc, reading email, reading slashdot, and still do my work. I am so quick, I give people head-aches when they are watching me work.
But I can believe the anger problem, I no longer have the patience for the "n00bie" on counter-strike who shots his own team members. WHY YOU LITTLE MO#$#@$#!$!#@$!!!....
"This was an honest disagreement about accounting procedures..." - President Bush
Oh, and I suppose next theyre going to tell us Beer kills brain cells.
-K
ah, yet more institutionalized stupidity. its sad how someone is a complete incompetent boob with windows, but thats ok- its cool to be stupid.
Slashdot is just "keepin it real".
The author of the article may have played one to many mortal combat sessions as well. Many important facts were just left out or ignored.
Every few months a go through a couple week addiction to a title from the Sierra Builing series, such as Acropolis. I believe this game actually increases intellect. How often does your mind have to balance 10 or so different conflicting priorities at once, such as entertainment needs, employeement problems, food supply, etc. Any need being address affects some of the others. Not only that, but you cannot directly affect anything (except tearing stuff down.) All actions you want to happen must be indirectly, and proactivly address. You cannot make food instanly out of thin air, you must built and employ people at forms to grow (or hunt) the food, staff a place to store it, staff stores which are located in strategic spots, etc.
This is not the same type of game for example as mortal combat type, or first person shooters. They have a completly different affect on the person playing them.
The author ignored, or failed to mention this whole issue.
-Pete
(amazon link above is an affiliate link...I love the game, I think other geeks may too.)
Soccer Goal Plans
Wow, you're pretty fucking stupid. I guess you call it "Neverwinter" for short because that's "cool", too.
That spending hundreds or thousands of hours doing something completely useless would influence your brain to wire itself to be more adept at doing something useless and that it might be at the expense of neglected social/emotional/mental skills?
Look, most slashdot readers live in free countries and we can all do pretty much what we want. But just think about how you would look/feel/think if you got back 1000 hours of game play and spent it more productively.
which games did they have them test in the study?
if it was something stupid, like "x-treme paintball" or "deer hunter", i can see the stupidity effect.
and i know from personal experience that playing Everquest made me want to kill someone, but it was usually either someone who worked for verant or else some pimply fat teenager about 100 miles away.
I donno ... if you're one of those kids who regularly get the snot beaten out of them by the other kids, video games may lead to less tension and fear than playing outside.
Of course, at that point you develop friendships that don't involve playing outside. And thus the geek is born.
Finding God in a Dog
I highly disagree with this finding. My brain activity is greatly increased while playing games. It causes critical thinking on levels that you may not find out in the "real" world on certain occasions.
For example:
Strategy: when playing games like hitman, ghost recon, and other strategy based mission games - you really have to think about what it is your doing. Paying close attention to the environment around you and (in all the really well made games) the sounds around you. You have to think about the best way to go about a mission so as to hopefully complete it with a perfect score.
I like to play all my missions with a "one shot - one kill" mentality. I dont like to waste any more than one bullet to the head on my victims - and I like to have a 100% head-shot rating.
This type of thing can be found in certain fields; military, police etc... but joe computer nerd's only oppurtunity to experience this is usually in front of the machine. And some of us get really good about this kind of thinking...
Imagination: Many games lift your imagination and make you think of things - how you would like them - the way it could be etc... you dont get this as much with TV - when watching TV you just do that, sit and watch, and decompose. TV is not interactive no matter what marketing babble you hear... it is a totally passive activity.
Character development and forethought: When playing games where you are building a character over a period of time - MMORPG or NWN style game, you have to think about what type of character you want to become - and how to grow that character into that. That does not take "decreased brain activity".
and many other things - but its time for NWN so all my thought-cycles are being re-directed, so I'm outta here.
Isn't this why we play video games anyhow :)
...and later...
it was found that the longer people spent playing video games, the less activity they showed in the prefrontal region of their brains, which governs emotion and creativity.
I don't know about you, but I play games to escape. I use "emotion and creativity" in my everyday activity...generally the reason you want to escape is the "emotional" part...
Think about it..."I'm bored, I'll play a game"..."Wow, this new game is kewl, I've gotta play it" (read "this is much more interesting than my booring life")...Or even in some cases (GTA3, UT, Quake, etc) "I wanna kill something"
Most every game I play is either to "fix" an emotion (boredom, depression, etc) or to experience a "pleasurable" emotion (violence, acomplishment, etc)
brain activity in the people who continually played games did not recover in the periods when they weren't playing games
Beta wave activity in people in the videogame group, who spent between two and seven hours each day playing games, was constantly near zero even when they weren't playing, showing that they hardly used the prefrontal regions of their brains.
Yea, if you're spending 7 hours of your day doing *ANYTHING* it's gonna have a negative effect on you...it's the same reason noone wants a repetitive job.
Which makes me wonder, is this playing 1 game for 7 hours a day, or a variety of them over time???
What next? Eat lots of crappy fast food and get fat? Pig out on sugar and become diabetic? Watch too much TV and get stoopid?
The government should do something to stop this!
One thing I wonder about is whether or not this is associated strictly with games, or merely using computers. I've noticed that I'm not as creative as I used to be since I've started programming for a living....
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
This paper details our study of how video games decrease brain activity. We played video games for many many hours and are now pleased to present our results. What we found was that...um...I can't really remember right now. Interesting...I have this sudden urge to click on something and make it explode. Fire! Fire! Heh heh. Heh. Does anyone reviewing this paper know where I can find the magic key that opens the locked door on level 7?
What if it's not the games that cause this activity, but rather this brain activity that draws a person to playing games more. Greg
To abstract it even further..
"Many situations stir up tension and a feeling of fear, and there is concern that this could have an effect on the autonomic nerves," Mori said. "During childhood, playing outside with friends, not doing stuff, is the best option."
Y2K Compliant since the late 1890s
So, playing too much video games leads to problems, socially and otherwise? I'll hold that that's true of anything. I saw a 20/20 once that told the story of a girl who exercised too much, and was just about killing her body. And exercise is supposed to be good for you. Eating too much leads to obesity, although food is a requirement for life. Too much water leads to drowning (ok, that's a stretch :) ).
The point is, this is nothing new. Video games, like everything else, should be played in moderation. Certainly, someone who spends 8 hours a day playing EQ or the like is going to have trouble. Just like someone who exercises too much, eats too much, drinks too much, etc.
Does this mean if I mix pot and video games I can live permanently in a fantasy world and not have to tell anyone about it?
Osmenthe here I come!!
ROTFLMAO OMFG
I wonder how many other readers know that reference. (/*points to id)
Flaimbait my hairy ass! The truth isn't always pleasant.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
I can definitely say that video games have had an effect on me. For instance, I no longer do stuff...and things...what was I talking about? HEY, stop staring at this post like that. What should I do now? BACK OFF OR I'LL KILL YOU!!! ARGG!!
re: "It is also claimed that this effect can cause behavioural changes, such as lack of concentration, difficulty with social association, and short temper. "
Huh, so does living... I also hear living causes death too, but the researchers are still out on that. I hear they are dieing to see thier results.
Your problem is the SB Live! card. The drivers for that card are complete shit. I've seen more stability issues arrise from that card than from anything else since it came out.
I will never put another Creative sound card in any of my computers again. Ever.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Firstly, there are 240 subjects. Not exactly a very large survey. Secondly, the survey mentions subjects between 6 and 29. Has it ever occured to them that a.) a 6 year old might have different brain activity to a 29 year old b.) a 6 year old might react differently to exposure to video games as a 29 year old would c.) there is probably substantial random variation betwee individuals and between times of day.
Did this guy actually control external influences, ie diet, length of time the subjects sleep each day (which has a BIG effect on intellectual performance), external simulation (TV, books, internet, even conversation with other human beings?!) and/or tendency for natural variation between other people? Or is he just looking for a controversial title to spice up his thesis and/or trying to get (a) research grant(s)?
At least I can't make a windows machine stable enough to run Neverwinter. Do you wear a helmet? How are those pills working out for you? A higher dose perhaps.... or you could pull your head out of your ass for a second and realize that any OS needs a fair ammount of "tweaking" to run properly. Hardware dependencies, bug fixes, security s/ware, driver updates is all part of the routine. Get a grip Taco. You and your broken Windows is sounding more like a broken record. Yawn.
I also wonder if there is some correlation between the intensity and/or longevity of the effects and age (I would expect that the effects are more pronounced and long-lasting in kids than adults, for instance).
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
I wonder what type of games he had his subjects playing. It seems to me, from personal experience, that playing MMORPGs are(or at least can be) a little more interactive than playing single player games. For example, I used to play Ultima Online, and I played with a group of the same people pretty regularly. We used VOIP to communicate with each other while playing. It seems to me that something like this would have an effect on your brain waves because you're interacting with other people while playing the game. It would be interesting if someone did a study about the difference between MMORPGs and single player games with this in mind.
Just my two cents
it was found that the longer people spent playing video games, the less activity they showed in the prefrontal region of their brains, which governs emotion and creativity.
I'm confused about this. I would think that less activity in the sections of the brain that govern emotions would lead to apathy, not to a shorter temper or anger.
The only issue I take is with the decrease in creativity. There are several games (MUCKS/MUDS come to mind) that encourage creativity in the form of building or roleplay. If you're not creative, there is no way you can pretend to be something that you're not.
Jumping around a bit more... the quote states that the decrease in activity was most readily seen in people that game a lot. I ask you this... wouldn't reading do the same thing to you? If came home and read all day, it would most likely affect your social skills and decrease your overall creativity as well.
-a friend of mine playing a game on his TI86 during yet another semi-boring APCS lecture
How does this compare with a comparable level of exposure to TV?
I can't imagine that watching TV would be more helpful than playing a video game where atleast some thought was required.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The results are easy to refute on there face, just consider ... ooooohhhh, an XBox.
C8H10N4O2 | Developer > Code
Prolonged time playing video games could cause people to lose concentration, get angry easily and have trouble associating with others, a Japanese professor's research has suggested.
My own research has proven the following startling possibilities:
Crossing the street could result in immediate violent death.
Flying in a plane could result in impacting the ground at extremely high speeds, thereby resulting in death.
Followers of any religion could develop more fanatical views and act out in anti-social ways.
All life on Earth could be wiped out by a large meteor impact that we shall discover 3 days after impact.
Oh, and of course, sitting around all day watching TV or playing games could rot your brain. I think that research has been done before, but its good to keep bringing it up. Parents need to keep abreast of this research so they have an excuse to get their kids off the computer when they otherwise won't listen to anything the parents say.
How was this research conducted? What was the initial purpose of the reasearch to begin with? Did they set out to prove (or disprove) the results they ended up with? So you set out to prove that iodine is bad for rats. Take 100 10 ounce rats and inject them with 5 ounces of iodine each. 99 rats die, and one escapes prior to injection. From this, you can prove that iodine could be fatal to rats. You can prove that large doses of iodone are not fatal to rats in some circumstances (the rat escapes). And in the end, we've learned nothing.
Research causes cancer in rats. Move along. Move along
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Hmmmm....interesting ideas aout videogames and brainwaves. Researches have known for a long time that various brainwaves patterns are inherant in various psychological disorders and predispositions. I wonder if someone will begin using video games and audio/visual stimuli as treatment for surpluses of particular brainwaves, or shortages of others.
.02
I know it sounds a little sci-fi, but hey, it IS what they are saying RIGHT? It stands to reason that if brainwave levels are the prime indicators of "undesirable" behavior patterns, then maybe video game type therapy may become commonplace in tretment of certain maladys.
just my
of creativity. Creativity is not a machine that HAS efficiency, it is a task that can be performed more or less efficiently.
what about www.americasarmy.com?
the army can't be behind this...
Depending on the game depends on how much I "Zone". Playing racing games and FPS type games i get into a zone where it feels like I am not even watching the screen but still reacting. So depending on the game certain areas of my head probably turn off just to focus more on the objective.
RTS and puzzle games (except tetris) do the opposite. I can't zone because once I do I am screwed.
Maybe this is what he was seeing the ability of a real gamer to zone and put to work what he needed just to "Survive".
Sounds like gamer evolution if you ask me "Survival of the fitist". The casual gamer sucks the extreem gamer rules.
Man, stop hassling me. Ok ok, 10 more minutes then i'll go. Look, im on the last level ok, i _have_ to see the end - look, look at the timer - see it says 3 minutes, ok, when its finished im dead anyway, so just leave me alone for 3 minutes. Ahh comon! thats not fair. Ok i don't care im doing that level again, no, you were distracting me. _Screw_ her, ok, shes not as important. I need to see the ending. just 1 minute. Shut up.
Ok, i'm really sorry, i forgot ok? i can go tomorrow. i promise. look i wrote it down. No im busy. Don't open the curtain the sun is glaring on my screen!! close it close it!. Awwwwh f*ck! i got killed. I don't care, no! im not going, its _my_ life. Yeah, and its more interesting than real life. Im not addicted. at least i don't do drugs and stuff like other people! yeah? well they're all dumb too. Its not fair.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I'd be interested to see if there's a difference not just between gamers and non-gamers, but between people who play video games and other types of games. Does a pencil-and-paper RPG like AD&D have the same effect as a computer RPG like Neverwinter Nights? How does a "twitch" game like a first-person shooter compare to a real-life game that requires fast reflexes, such as ping pong? What about chess, or crossword puzzles, or Scrabble?
The main question that this study leaves unanswered is the cause of these effects. Is it the content of the games? Or is there something special, from a neurological standpoint, about playing games on a TV or computer screen as opposed to in real life?
Cheers,
IT
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
Dixon's in U.K. has been flogging game consoles based on brain-scan results for 4 months (max beta waves in this world-view being a sign of a quality gaming experience):
http://www.dixons-group plc.co.uk/webcode/content.asp?pageid=708
of course, no discussion of lingering effects...
The biggest problem with this study is that people were not selected randomly into each group. Because of this some of the measured effect maby coming from the fact that same people game more than others for a reason. It may be that a brain that reacts in a sertain way get's more pleasure from gaming then others. (This could be compared to those studies that "proved" that living together before marrige causes increased risk of divorce.) Note that i don't claim that the conclusions of the study are wrong, just that the mechanism of choosing how a person ends up in what group can effect the results. And i don't see any method of preventing such bias in the study.
FRA: STFU GTFO
> I was gonna say something witty and insightful here, but I can't think of anything
Hmm...why does this not surprise me at all?
The vagueness is misleading too. What actual effects does this have on people? Are their social skills appreciably affected? How?
There are so many variables at work here it is hard to begin on criticism. I very much doubt my social skills have been affected by my gaming. The only time I have played games a lot is during university - four player Goldeneye with my friends, often over a few beers, invariably extremely social and far far more productive than the four to six of us sitting watching cable. At least two hours a night, every night. On the other hand, maybe our higher education and relatively high social class was in our favour - maybe ( I am just postulating, not trolling) lower social classes play more video games and the increase in social skills they get from them is offset by the decrease in grey matter caused by their unemployment / unfulfilling job / substance abuse / one of another 10000 things this study has completely ignored?
This idea was invented by Shampoo.
It should make a hell of a difference. Specially if those other players can be get to known. I think meeting people face to face is much better than any online multiplayer RPG, but it will make a hell of a diference.
unfinished: (adj.)
In my game tranquility, reducing brain activity was the overriding design goal.
I avoided any features that used short term memory, there's no paths to remember or pattern matching skills used. I even tried to remove all of
the text during game play so you could turn off that part of the brain too. I made the mouse movement sensitive to minimal movement so
you could basically sit like a blob in a chair and play. If you start moving the mouse in an aggressive way, the viscosity of the environment is
increased which makes game play more difficult. The music is also quiet and trance-like. When the game progresses and the graphics get
more dense, the music in turn gets sparse so it's a sliding balance between two kinds of sensory stimulation. It's a big feedback loop that
attempts to reward moving towards a vegetative state.
What's cool about this is that we get lots of players that tell us that they essentially get stoned playing the game. (Something that Quake just can't do.)
Not just a mild effect either, but quite profound according to some of our players. It's more of a reefer or opiate high as opposed to a buzz.
The effect also seems to persist for an hour or so after playing. I don't know of, or have had any reports of, long term effects (your honor..).
Seems like the causation in this study is going the wrong direction-- difficulty with social association et al would tend to make one more likely to want to play video games, where those attributes aren't a detriment. Video games require 0 social association, they don't care if you yell and scream at them and generally make an ass of yourself (unless you actually break the game, of course), and you don't have to concentrate on anything outside the screen.
At least mafia-owned pizzarias make excellent pizza. Compare to Bill Gates.
In other news sun light can cause sunburn and eating excessive fats and cholesterol can cause heart disease...
In other words we all know the great majority of the video games available can and do produce those side effects regardless.. It is obvious. While there are many games that perhaps lead you to higher thinking, the great majority just lead you to be dumb for awhile. And while I doubt such effects are irreversible as the study claims, the impact is long lasting I am sure and takes several years to unwind itself. I'm not against game playing by any means, but the kids who shut themselves in and play and play and play themselves into oblivion DO show these symptoms, lack of social skills, weird behaviour (such as abnormal aggression, etc.) and so on. Everything in moderation guys.
damn moderators. flamebait my ass...
Although I would agree that RTS's and sims aren't intellectually stimulating beyond a certain point, I think there is a point in saying "it depends."
The phrase "video games" is fairly broad and would include just about any game that is displayed on a video screen (or computer monitor), including such games as chess and go. I doubt anyone would be willing to say such games (as chess and go) decrease brain activity simply because of the way they are interfaced.
---
Open Source Shirts
Does smoking cause Cancer or does Cancer cause smoking?
They didn't mention whether these people were asked to play games for an amount of time they normally wouldn't or whether they volunteered based on there normal gameplay activity.
Maybe lower brain activity causes people to play video games.
-- My HARDWARE, My CHOICE.
Perhaps this has to do with what is getting optimized. If he is studying games that place a premium on fast reaction times, then it makes perfect sense that extraneous computations would tend to be filtered out as players became more trained to the mind set required by the game. Conversely, they might become more acutely aware of certain sensory stimulii.
Learning to perform any activity causes the thought processes to optimise themselves to perform that activity. This seems obvious. I would hardly expect game playing to be any different. Games of strategy would probably not exhibit this effect, but also would not encourage quick reactions. etc.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Looks like its time to re-roll a new character.
[allcaps]i thnk itz troo espeseealy wen i seee tis[/allcaps]
People discover the meaning of life between getting piss drunk and the following hangover.
Its all in how you analyze the results. One researcher could say that video games make us dumb, while another could say the exact opposite. I love statistics :).
Slashdot is a waste of time. I enjoy wasting time.
There are tons more articles like this on MDN. It's their specialty.
My other first post is car post.
Unless he read a different article than he submitted, the submitter made a bit of the summary up. Specifically, he said that "these effects are also thought to be, to some extent, nonreversible."
The only time the article references that is when it states:
And brain activity in the people who continually played games did not recover in the periods when they weren't playing games, the research showed.
I didn't see evidence of a test in which they deprived the gaming group of games for a couple months, and then tested them. That being said, it's obvious that getting daily exercise has all sorts of benefits, with or without the study.
Certain types of video games definitely are used for the "veg out" factor. I'd be interested to see a study comparing people who play 2-7 hours of games a day (he DID pick a pretty hard core group) to people who watch 2-7 hours of TV a day.
Most of these studies are silly. You must realize that people who play video games more than 2 hours a day have a tendency to have other things in common besides just playing video games. While it may be true that the prefrontal lobe has less activity (and even that is questionable and what that means is questionable), even if that is the case blaming video games may be invalid. It could be many other things besides the video games. For example a study a few years back demonstrated that short men are less likely to have children, and concluded that the men must be less fertile, not taking into account the ways of our society and that women are supposed to be attracted to tall men. Another study showed that women who regularly have unprotected sex are much less likely to suffer from depression. The conclusion was that something in the semen was being absorbed through the skin and having a chemical reaction. This of course is probably rediculous because one should know that women that are willing to regularly have unprotected sex tend to have different personalities then women who have no sex, or who have protected sex. Of course, it would be nice to be able to tell women that your semen is more effective than prozac. The point to be made is that people always are able to prove what they want to prove. These weak inductive proofs found in these studies are quite rediculous and should be ignored. What should not be ignorded is the studies themselves. While the conclusions may be rediculous, quite often the data in the study can be worth looking at.
I'm running great with Win2K on my dual Celeron box with 192 MB RAM, SB128 audio and Abit GF4 Ti4200 video. I was surprised to hear people were having so much trouble.
to the blind quake players, like they only just got the game 'n everything.
Hmmm? So that explains why we've all seen so many posts with pour speling and grammar.
if he can't get NW to run on Windows 2k.
Dumbass.
What was this article about .. i forgot?
Guess what else lowers attention spans, alters thought patterns, and makes it harder to do such things as interact and study: music!
Ever tried to study to music? Unless the music is raw noise that you just tune out, chances are that you partly listen to it -- wasting precious mind cycles. If you are listening to particularly good music, which you stop to enjoy (or even jump up and dance to, depending on the situation, etc), you're clearly not focusing on the task at hand.
Humans don't multitask at a fundamental level (not well, anyways). This is why study guides say you shouldn't study to music, and that you should study in blocks of time greater than half an hour for full effect (your mind does take time to switch gears).
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Who would dare a call master chess player anything but a genius? Indeed, few "video games" require such in depth and coordinated multidimensional thinking, but certainly some do. Take Master of Orion (1,2, & soon 3), Civilization, Warcraft, Sim City, and Railroad Tycoon. Although not chess, they hone skills of perception, opportunism, cause and effect, and forethought that would otherwise have no stimuli in our oh-so-great non-video game world. ;)
To continue the analogy with athletes someone made.. there are differences between athletes and non-athletes at rest. Also, if someone does something efficiently under a heavy load, I would think it strange if they stopped when the load was less.
How about a double blind study to compare these findings to office workers, tv watchers, etc.?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I mean, if someone is a couch potatoe all day and all night only to eat, excrete and sleep, wouldn't it have the same effect?
Maybe even reading, surfing the web or anything else for that matter. I think it's easier to prove with games since they generally require more interaction and tend to keep our interest.
All I can think of are the final fantasy series games (and other squaresoft games). I'm a real nut and I've been playing them since they came out in the U.S.
I did well until I got to FF7. I had grown up a bit and went about halfway through only to get mad at myself for waisting so much time on a "stupid game" even though the game is awesome.
I did the same thing with FF8. I'm even working on FF9 right now. I'd guess I'm about 75% done with Disc 3 out of 4. I'm too enthralled with this game since it incorporates a lot of cool stuff from the older games (FF1) that I grew up with.
I have no intention of starting FFX or beyond.
Anyway, the point is this... When I play those games for hours and hours and hours, I get mad at myself because I have passed on social oppourtunities and I have been lazy and realize that I should have been doing work or sleeping instead of staying up until 6am trying to get my FF5 guys up to Level 99. (THANK GOODNESS THEY CAP IT OFF AT 99!!!!)
Just due to the lack of sleep alone, I probably kill some brain cells.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
It scares me to think that people who drive cars and play GTA3 are developing shorter tempers.... ouch!
Since most of us are pretty stupid anyway, does it really matter? I mean the Flat Earth Society is still around for Pete's sake!
Perhaps if we all send the researchers involved in the project emails entitled "stfu noob!!!11" they will be moved to reverse their position on gamers.
Shorter tempers can sometimes mean that you realize quicker that there's something to be upset about.
My boss doesn't play video games....hummmm....
© 2004 The SCO Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday July 08, @07:08PM
from the limbaugh-combos-are-not-in-the-sats dept.
Richard M writes "A Farkistanian researcher, Oika Irom, from the Farkistan University's College of Humanity, claims to have found a link between voting for Republicans and the balance of activity in the brain. It is also claimed that this effect can cause behavioural changes, such as lack of concentration, difficulty with social association, short temper, and enjoying Fox News. These effects are also thought to be, to some extent, nonreversible."
I was gonna say something witty and insightful here, but I can't think of anything. At least I can't figure out a butterfly ballot well enough to vote for Kathleen Harris instead of a dog.
Stories About Video Games Found to Incresae Slashdot Activity
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
This seems to be another case where there may be a strong correlation but debatable causation. If you have bad social skills you are far more likely to engage in introverted hobies, included amongst those is playing video games.
Also, I'd be very curious to see a study showing the relation between different kinds of games and brain activity. Does playing a stategic game alter the effects versus a shoot 'em up kind of game. Seems to me that a puzzle solving game is probably going to have a different effect than say pac man.
Finally, I'm curious as to what his conclusions are actually saying. I'm not a neurologist so I can't comment with any real expertise, but I've done a little research about brain waves, mental states, etc. I had always been under the impression that having a brain heavily in alpha waves was good. This is, as I understand it, the state one is supposed to be in when meditating. So is this necessarily a bad thing?
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Mod this up. Funny, Interesting. :P
they don't tell what video games they used. They don't even say the type of game.
I could expect thier results from sonic or mario, but what about games like quake?
And what ever happened to eye hand coords ?
They are read in the electrical potential read by electrodes placed on the scalp.
As such, they are not "mind waves" which tell us what people are thinking. It is not a magical technique which tells us how much people are thinking. The best which has been demonstrated using this technique (without getting into event-related potentials) is a sort of correlation between states of relaxation and what's read from the scalp.
Not how much thinking is being done. Not how much concentration or smarts or anything like that. But electrical potentials from the scalp. More electrical activity isn't the same as more thinking. Not even more neurotransmission is the same as more thinking. Inhibitory interneurons account for a very large proportion of the brain, and they act to reduce neurotransmission at other sites.
Pretty much the best that can be done with this kind of measure is to distinguish frontal-temporal-ish from occipital-parietal-ish more electrical activity or less. This doesn't tell us about anything but gross anatomical distinctions of gross amounts of electricity summed across many different areas and weighted sharply toward outermost layers of cortex (even assuming we are not looking at data strongly colored by muscle potentials). Let's not get carried away.
As for the alleged correlation, effects of loss of prefrontal function, i.e. loss of creativity and emotional functionality. . . shouldn't this show up in game programmers first as a decline in programming skills and in increasingly bizarre behavior? When I say 'bizarre', I mean of the sort that gets people arrested or committed.
I suspect something is going on here, but I doubt it means what the researcher thinks. Or the results he was paid to 'discover'.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Isn't it possible that people that have "difficulty with social association" just tend to retreat to the fictional world of gaming? I know i do, and it has caused me to have a "short temper." Plus these gaming companies are smart, they know their audience. I'm sure they engineer games to appeal to people with short attention spans or that have a natural "lack of concentration." This study would have been easier for them to document if they simply asked people that have concentration trouble and don't interact well socially if they play video games. If they yell back, "YES!!!" then you also have the answer about the temper thing too. And of course it's permanent, that's because of who we are, not what we play.
Last time I checked, pretty much every Japanese like to play games. Weird enough, I have yet to meet a dumb Japanese.
I believe that there is a significant role that videogames play in human relations. Not a good role though. I think that games don't really act as an outlet of pent up hostility, or develop any other skills other then being able to press the arrow keys rapidly. I know people (I realize that this is anecdotal for most, but it's true for me) who are addicted to videogames. Over the past few years they have developed fewer, and lost many friendships. And, they always resist the idea of limiting their time 'on the box'.
3 39 B-A694-1CC5-B4A8809EC588EEDF&catID=2
Addiction usually gets this bad reputation because the people who are addicted are defensive of what they do; either as an alcoholic, heavy drug user, gambler, or sex addict. Sure it might seem funny right now to make jokes of it but how many of you don't eat, bathe, go outside, sleep, or talk (using your mouth not fingers) for extended periods of time. The results on your body are more detrimental than you are willing to admit. Remember that a lot of alcoholic and heavy drug users hold down jobs too.
I've also recently read another article from SciAm that some people might want to read; the link is below. The article refers to TV but the results are similar to the video game study.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0005
... not the brightest of the bunch to start off.
How many intellectuals comprise the "gaming class" in Japan?
huh, duh, argh, ya, lotta cursing and other wierd body noises
PS: if you moderate this down...
STFU N GTFO! =)
I know this is kinda off-topic .. but he referenced neverwinter nights... Just a tip.. I konw a lot of people who've had stability problems with the game who have ATI cards (go figure.. its driver support)... THe funny thing is i found.. that if you roll back the drivers to the march or april Radeon drivers the game works perfectly... ... Go ahead give me the off-topic rating..
Who makes you Sig?
Surveys can find just about anything you want, if done correctly.
"Facts are meaningless. You can use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true."
c-hack.com |
I'm not sure, when I actually played EQ (as in 70 hours a week during/and outside of work) as a 60 enchanter, the people in EQ were more real than anything in rl.
I developed several real friendships during my EQ playing (some of which I still keep in touch with). I'm quick to judge EQ as an evil game now, but I think for the social skills I had when I was 16-18 it was perhaps more valuable to me than RL, as I could try random stuff and if it didn't work the social effects lasted about two days.
I don't know about the *lack* of brain activity, but after playing many hours of games, I typically am "in the mood" for a bit afterwards:
I sometimes catch myself glancing up at the tops of buildings, and peeking around corners after a bit too much Doom or
After a long GTA3 stint, I have a strong urge to check the doors on parked cars I walk by
But, maybe that's just me.
Yeah maybe short temper and lack of social skills, but concentration, you concentrate more! Playing any RTS, RPG, FPS requires you to think. Many times have I found myself yelling at my mother and brothers for coming in my room while I'm playing. When they do that, that's a distraction, and I don't like it.
:)
I play games online all the time. And yes I admit I lack social skills. I'm 20yr's old and don't really give a damn. Why? Because I'm having fun
However, a decrease in brain activity? That's the dumbest thing I heard in a while. All you do the whole time your on a computer is think. What should have been said was a decrease in physical activity, because that's the only loss. And that can be change by working out and so on.
I take gingko biloba... I'd forgotten the reason.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
In other news, results from a new study were released today that show that smoking is found to lower IQs.
The people that are antisocial, angry, and have trouble concentrating are the ones that are going to tend to play more video games, so he has it backwards.
Angry? kill some zombies. trouble concentrating? the action level in most games would help with that. Antisocial? game characters don't require a high degree of social interaction
You can pay me a billion dollars, but I still won't find that the sky is green and the grass is blue. If I falsify the data then no one will be able to replicate. "Who profits" is only a good question if there is no oversight and good reason to think that someone is falsifying data.
Haha Niggers!
you will need to try harder if you want to slip underneath my troll radar, old son
It's grant money (free) so they get paid to do a 3 year study and play games. Sounds like a good job to me.
Hmmm..., Germany?
Did you take the blue pill or the red pill?
If what you are reading sounds funny, or sarcastic, lame, or stupid
it is because it is supposed to be. just laugh
palying computer games does not casue a lack of activity, but casues specialized activity. As you repeat a function over and over again (such as pick up rocket launch, fire at bad guy, whatch bad guys limbs fly, laugh, and repeat) the neurons in your brain start forming hard whire connection. As this activity continues your brain will no longer send out the message wildly in hopes the the right recepter picks it up but sends hte message to perfomr the above activity striaght to the proper recepter (much like when omlimpic competitors say they just do action without thinking about it). So when studies like this show a lack of brain activity, what they are show is a lack of useless brain activity when to brain is functioning quite optimally. Aa for nonreversal effects? BULLSHIT! after a time of not using the new neural pathways the hard links will wither adn eventually break off. As for people being iritable, of course they are, when your brians get wired for a certian function and then you try and stop that function of course you are going to be iritable. Are you not iritable ater you get home form work? Why do you think people need some down (or "cave" as it's said in a popular book) time when they get home. The need time to rewire their brains from work mode to home mode. unfortunately the time needed for proper rewireing is a couple of days, which is why it's a good thing people have vactaions or their would be more office shootings.
I was read an artical in the Wall Street journal that said electric razors casue lukemia. They printed this because out of 100 lukemia patients surveyed, all of them use electric razors. Don't believe what you read, and although i'm not one to shatter your hard held beliefs, but just becasue it's on the internet, does not make it true.
but this is just my opinion, i could be wrong.
2) Get laid. Get so good at it that you can walk into any social situation and walk out with someone you just met.
3) Find a person who perfectly compliments your own strengths and faults, marry them, create a strong and lasting marriage, have kids, and raise them to be excellent people.
These should probably not be attempted simultaneously
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Feeling angry and performance are not incompatible and control does not guarantee performance.
Fucking ROCKED!
Wizardry II on my Apple II. Balls to the wall 64K (yup, I had the 16K Language Card) machine running 1.4 MHz. That took more of my hours (and according to this study my health) than any other game out there today.. except ZORK of course. I think it might have been written in Pascal..
Anyway it was great. Wonder if it will run on catakig emulator? Zork's great.
In the USA, american girls get fat eating fast food.
:)
In Japan, girls get horny eating fast food.
Well i dont know about the rest of you, but i am in favor of importing more Japanese fast food
I'd rather get McLaid then get McDonalds
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
...definitely flares when playing video games. Especially these console games where you can't save your goddamn game and have to play 10 minutes of the same bullshit EVERY FUCKING TIME YOU RESTART THE LEVEL just to play the last 1 minute that you can't beat!
www.Jackassery.com
to keep up with technology, add a bug-zapper
...bogus!
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-- Pablo Picasso
Computer games don't have any magic frontal-lobe-activity-decreasing effects on people. If you sat and stared at the bible for three hours you'd probably have trouble concentrating, get angry easily, and having trouble associating with others.
Hell, I got angry reading this report... and I haven't played a game since quake2 came out.
...I thought that it was just my ass getting numb.
THATS BULL%#$&!!! uh what? short temper? i don't understand?!?
That experiment is stupid, if anything kills braincells it's TV not computer.
I would! While some master chess players are no doubt geniusess, others are probably not. An idiot savant may be an excellent chess-player, but still not a genius.
Being good at chess requires some very specific abilities that overlap, but do not encompass, "genius."
Although not chess, they hone skills of perception, opportunism, cause and effect, and forethought that would otherwise have no stimuli in our oh-so-great non-video game world.
What "perception skill" can be experienced in Civ. that has no stimulus in the real world? The ability to perceive icons? You can do that all the time in the real world.
God is real unless declared integer
Making a Mac stable enough to run NWN would be pretty hard too. The stability of Mac OS X is quite reminiscent of Windows 95, and MacOS 9 of Windows 3.1.
The only way the typical /.er can pick up a chick is with a forklift. -- AC
First of all, the article noted that the people with the decreased brain activity were playing two to seven hours a day. Anyone that dissociates with society on a regular basis for that period of time probably isn't all that normal to start with.
Second, if those of you that play sports will note, playing becomes "automatic". In that your instincts take hold and playing becomes a simple reaction. For example if you are playing baseball or doing martial arts, you concentrate on the pitch or punch coming at you, and you are reacting from past experience where the ball or punch is going to be by conditioning. A drop in alpha waves is what I would expect in a study like this. Pro atheletes don't think about doing what they do they have conditioned themselves to be that good. In a recent interview I saw with Charles Barkley (one of the best forwards in basketball, ever)he stated that he would eat Burger King or McDonalds on game day. When asked why, he replied "Either you can play or you can't, it doesn't matter what you eat."
You need to look at what this persons background and agenda are. Gaming in Japan is extremely popular, and maybe this guy has a vendetta about perceived negative cultural influence.
-D
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!" - Homer Simpson
"analyzed the brain waves of 240 people aged between 6 and 29"
So, here we go again, 240 people checked out of 6 billion on the planet, and we are supposed to take this 'research' as legitimate.
Hey, I bet I can line up 240 people who suffer low health risk from smoking -- therefore smoking must be completely safe.
Oh, I can also gather 240 people who think our entire society should be based on the prinicples of Star Trek -- I guess it's a global phonomenon.
Geez.
Several people have pointed out that the study makes no distinction about what kind of game is being played. IMHO, it doesn't matter what kind of game is being played, almost all games, after the initial learning phase, become simple stimulus -response. Whether it is "find enemy then shoot-dodge", or "see shortage of resources, make more peons." or "he's building flyers, I need to build anti-flyers." there is really no higher thinking going on. No creativity or moral judgement. The player is just looking for a known pattern and using a known response.
I think that even a thinking game like chess would get similar results. There is a lot of mental activity going on, but very little creative thinking. One isn't forming new thoughts, but instead managing variables in a closed system.
Which is why this study, though possibly interesting, doesn't mean what it pretends to mean.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
He also found that it made people believe stupid studies.
first it's video games make you dumb, then smart, then dumb again then smart a different way. Gosh I wonder if the same results could be found by monitoring baseball players or the like?
Honestly though, of all these kids spent their time reading and persuing intellectual activity and making friends instead of sitting in front of a computer / TV, just think where the world would be.
I've noticed that the tone of the posts questioning the validity of this study sound a lot like a creationist decrying evolution. In my mind the correlation is too strong to be co-incidental, and reduced brain activity because of videogames is a scary enough thought to warrant consideration.
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
Mori said the research showed that only the nerve circuits of sight and motion moved when people played videogames, causing a drop in the process of thought.
Hunh? Where are they going? It seems to me that if playing video games keep my
nerve circuits in place I should be playing more of them.
http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/waiwai/0206/020619nymphs .html
Sorry, you are mistaken. The Mainichi is a great major Japanese newspaper, unfortunately its English version has stopped appearing in printed form due to furious competition.
The Wai-Wai section which this latest sex maniac article has always been a full page section which compiled a precis of several bizarre and interesting (half of the time sex-related) articles from the weekly tabloid magazines. The word tabloid is also perhaps not appropriate; these magazines include news, essays, and a titilating slant but are not like U.S. supermarket tabloids' "Space Aliens Had My Baby" genre. Generally the articles seem not to be apocryphal, and most always good for a laugh or squeamish grimace. I recommend WaiWai (which means something like "Yeah!" or "Fun!" or "Surf's Up!" which shows another side of Japan which you might call wacky, perverse, sociologically fascinating or just "realistic", this is what Crighton never told.
I used to buy the newspaper just for this column (Sundays I believe) and a couple of columns inside the front page. A great loss right down to the cheap ink that would come off on your fingers. Thanks for finding it online for me again!
One comment said that the only skill video games give us are the ability to rapidly press the buttons. Anyone play Silent Hill 2 lately? In a fight, sure I'm firing away every last shot I have in a second if it takes that; but, most of the time, I'm calming going down the halls, checking doors, re-reading riddles, and trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
Of course, I used to play Quake all the time. Now that was a button-pusher, but not much of a thinker. Get the routine down and there isn't much too it. Same with games like Soul Calibur on Dreamcast, which I was addicted too. Hell, I had that down so much I could beat anyone with the controler under my toes, not fingers, while eating a pizza and talking. No thought involved, lots of buttons being destroyed.
What's my point? There is a balence in video games we need to consider with this sort of discussion and research. Thought versus habit. How much of the gameplay can be trained (Quake) and how much is a surprise, always requiring and even tuning thought processes (Silent Hill 2).
Think about it. And if you have trouble thinking, play some video games and you're brain will work a little better.
Question
http://www.ironfroggy.com/
Find a set of randomly picked non-computer-games-players and throw the same set of challenges at them. See which kind of people are better at handling those problems. (getting (2) and (3) to be compatible with each other seem to be particularly difficult...)
those other studies which said that gaming increases coordination, reduces stress [over long-term, not while playing], and didnt slashdot post about a study saying that while there was a correlation between video games and violence, there was no evidence that the two were related? Damn, slashdot's search page sucks in all respects..
Anyway, those links were hastily pulled up, I'm sure if you bothered to spend more than the three minutes I spent looking for them, you'd find more.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Delay reaction in responding to questions,
Drool on chin,
Limited visual perception
Remembering your late for, oh nevermind whats more important than leveling up my dude...
WaiWai is pretty much a tabloid. It doesn't seem to be quite as prone to pure fabrication as the usual American staples, but it's close enough.
---
Dum de dum.
Freedom is not the license to do what we like, it is the power to do what we ought.
Remember a few years ago before FMVs became so popular in video games? Research showed that video games IMPROVED learning, now, ahh;
:-D
just like a night out at the movies.
Enjoy your latest wanna-be RPG on your PS2, feh.
Betcha if somebody did a study of Nethack players they would NOT find the same results.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
If the test subjects in the article play anywhere from two to seven hours a day of video games, then either they are on the payroll of the research full time and this is legitimate, or they are holding regular jobs and NOT GETTING ANY SLEEP.
C W-Quake-Doom binge and pulled out with a fresh brain? Yeah, right. No one is getting any stupider because of the internet, video games, or television. Perhaps, AND I AM JUST GOING OUT ON A LIMB HERE, maybe there is a correlation between sleep deprivation and decreased Beta wave activity.
I mean, honestly, how many of us have spent waaaaay too many hours blowing out our REM sleep time and come to work fresh and ready to go?
Seven hours a day! How many of us have not gone on a C&C/Warcraft-Starcraft/Counterstrike/Evercrack/RT
http://zapatopi.net/mindguard.html
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
I remember reading some stories on the BBC website saying that NASA scientists are using computer games and biofeedback to treat children that are hyperactive or have an attention deficit disorder (ADD). They're also considering using games to train fighter jet pilots to cope with the stress of combat.
d _8 94000/894673.stm
d _1 972000/1972571.stm
i d_ 1879000/1879019.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsi
Also, researchers of the Irish Republic are working on a project of games that help people relax.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsi
I also read that a study funded by the Department for Education of the UK concluded that some games "developed children's strategic thinking and planning skills" and also made children work in teams "Now that's interesting when the stereotype is that children play on the computer exclusively on their own," said Professor McFarlane, director of the team.
The list of games used included popular games like Age of Empires II, The Sims and F1 Championship racing, among others.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/education/news
Er, have you bothered to look over the rest of that site? Don't you find it just a little bit odd that all the stories are about sex?
What I find the most disturbing is that all those stories could be true!
Using an EEG to make statements about the effects of gaming on the brain is like trying to benchmark your computer's processing power with a voltmeter. Likewise, using self-selecting experimental groups is poor science. If this researcher was at all serious about proving a causal relationship between gaming and negative effects on the brain, why didn't he:
1) Select a random sample consisting only of healthy people who don't play games for more than X hours a week to participate in the study.
2) Randomly divide that sample into a control group (who don't modify their behavior) and several experimental groups. Take measurements of brain activity for all participants before any of them play games. Use standardized psychological tests and health history questionnaires to rule out participants who are abnormal psychologically or physiologically.
3) Choose an archetypal set of games representative of different game categories (puzzle, shoot-'em-up, etc.)
4) Administer no games to the control group, games from a single archetype to individual experimental groups, and a mixture of games from different archetypes to one of the experimental groups. Give each experimental group an equal amount of time playing games.
5) Take measurements of the control group at rest. Take measurements of the experimental groups prior to gaming, while they are gaming, and after gaming.
6) Use a better system of measurement than surveys and EEG. Neurofunctional MRI and standardized psychological tests would work nicely.
?
This game counts as a psuedo FPS, and it takes strategy, and thinking ahead at all times. Because of horrid net code, and buggy game play, you had to be able to anticipate where a person would be seconds into the future, fire there, and hope that your shots would hit them, combined with hundreds of configurations possible, and dozens of chassis and weapons, you had a game that if you were a normal FPS player you simply wouldnt do that well, especially considering that you had multiple degrees of movement (torso, arms, legs all moved seperate)
Games like Mech3 would have to improve thinking, at least at the competitive level, simply because if you didnt THINK you lost. you couldnt be twitchy "im a good player" when you were surrounded by people who knew what they are doing.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
You are obviously a sincere believer in Windows with an remarkably low I.Q. and the manners of a maggot, or else you are a slightly more inteligent, yet equally as boring individual who is embarking on a career as a troll.
In either case, I wish you the best of luck in your painful and meaningless journey through life.
The military must have been aware of this effect for some time. The use of video-game style simulators has greatly increased the percentage of soldiers who are willing to unthinkingly shoot to kill when under threat. In WWII, it was less than 50% in the most recent conflicts over 90%. I've heard military trainers say that videogame programmers are doing the job for them. They are making military training much easier as young recruits join the military without emotional "baggage" about killing.
Ask any professional or very good chess player if it takes genius to become a master or grandmaster. They will almost certainly say no. It takes talent, hard work, and practice. You can train yourself to become a good chess player. It takes time.
I give them that there is an interrelation between gaming and creativity/social skills but to imply causation I highly doubt that they can prove gaming causes a lack of creativity/social skills or a lack of creativity/social skills causes increased gaming ...
I think similar conclusions should apply to other
'escape'-behaviour like intensive movie watching
or news reading.
Also it is quite likely that people who
play more games are simply those undermore stress
and less successfull anyway. So it may be not
the games which cause the problem. The problem
may be different and lead to both lower
mental skills and more intensive game playing.
I know my myself that when I am depressed
and unsuccessfull I am playing games much more.
But this does not mean that I am unsuccesfull
because of games. It is the other way around.
Kubus
is it lack of activity or its it merely an optimization of the path ways. i dont think my brain is 'active' as much while driving compared to a 15 year old kid's brain who is just learning.
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
They got it backwards - it's WORK that numbs the brain. Games recharge it.
So you're waiting for the Linux client too?
:).
Wonder if you've joined the chorus of Penguins over on nwn.bioware.com asking for it
Brain activity...Maybe that explains why I like to sleep so mu...zzzzz
StarTux
Oh, communist trolls are so cute!
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Could the brain stimulation from playing games cause it to be bored in social situations? The level of brain activity is reduced, but are the IQ's of the subjects (while 'alert') also reduced? I don't game but I would sort of agree with the study having changed jobs to one where I interact much less with people.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
Look at the parallels! I do it for more than seven hours a day, five days a week, and I come home crabby and hating human beings. Quick! Somebody publish a paper!
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
The major problem I see with this is not demonstrating whether the video game playing is the cause or a symptom of the lack of concentration and social difficulties those in the study have. It seems just as or more likely that the people who were in the category that played the most may have always had social difficulty, lack of concentration and irritability (and these three conditions seem to exacerbate the others) and use video game playing as an escape or coping mechanism. It may be true that prolonged playing may worsen these conditions but it may also help people deal with them. This is particularly true with on-line games as people that are self-concious seem more comfortable socializing virtually for a multitude of reasons.
STOP ROCK VIDEO
This is crap theory. If you believe it you are a dodo.
Exactly. Reading books all the time is not the best thing to do either.
Don't tell the Army!
"Yeah, well, Dracula called and he's coming over tonight for you and I said okay."
the writer of this article probably can't finish this game.
First off. . .
The group studied 240 people in three groups. -Heavy game players, moderate and abstainers. That puts 80 people into each group. Among that 80, were people aged from 6 to 29. --Right there, I'm concerned. Different aged people have different things going on with their brain chemistry. Puberty alone introduces all kinds of chemical changes which could throw off the study. What was the gender division? Were all the participants playing the same game? Were the particpants using a CRT or a thin-screen? (different levels of EM and different kinds of visual stimulus affect the nervous system in different ways.) Heck, the various occupations of the participants could easily make a difference;
For instance, how many of the participants work 8 hours a day in front of a VDT, and how does that affect the study?
A study like this, which sounds to me as though it applied virtually no environmental controls on its subjects, would have to use a MUCH larger sample of people before any statistical analysis could become properly convincing. 3000 people would be a good number, with sub-groups where such things as age, gender, and type of occupation are taken into account.
Now, granted, this article was light on details, and maybe the study was done with strict controls and measures, but until the actual paper is released this Fall, we won't know. Until then, based on the posted article, I am going to have to suspend judgement, because it seems to me that this study might easily have been poorly executed.
That being said, however. . .
Just because the science may have been poor, I would not be surprised in the least to see that there IS some kind of correlation between video game playing and altered mind states. It would be very interesting if somebody were to do a proper study to find out what the effects might really be.
Until then, I am. . .
-Fantastic Lad
Well, of course playing pokemon is not going to net you any friends :P.
Of course, they conviently forgot to mention what games were used in this 'study.'
Barney's Hide and Seek, anyone?
At least I can't make a windows machine stable enough to run Neverwinter or my brain would be toast.
Apparently its already too late if you can't make a windows machine thats stable enough to run a simple game.. oh well..
was any observation made as to how often video game addicts forgot to eat, or drink a sufficient quantity of water to properly nourish themselves?
brain activity is overrated anyways. seriously the guy who thinks the smarter lazyer way prolly doesnt think nearly as hard as the guy who comes up with complicated solution to the same question.
as long as there is some activity and kids are not on life support from playing games who cares.
It will be interesting seeing the details, if any, in this report. Of cause post hoc details won't be relevant though after the meme generated by that headline. I'd love to see if they compared if people are initially different and then attracted to games or not. I'd love to see what sort of games if any, they seperated the results into. Every game I play simply couldn't be completed without plenty of creative thinking so I reckon they must just be looking at shootem-ups. And I wonder what the control group was, if any.
.."
And how did they know the games caused permanent damage if the people had been playing the games for years and weren't measured before they started playing?
"Many of the people in this group told researchers that they got angry easily, couldn't concentrate, and had trouble associating with friends."
D'oh, maybe thats why they played computer games a lot !!
There seems to be a trend in Japanese research that playing computer games is bad. I wonder how much of this is science and how much is cultural bias by older researchers against the changes in a young population?
The next 3 statements sum up the quality of their work:
"...separating the beta waves that indicate liveliness and degree of *tension*...."
"Beta wave activity in people in the videogame group, who spent between two and seven hours each day playing games, was constantly near zero... "
"Many videogames stir up tension
Sorry guys, can't have it both ways!!
I think they should perform some Pavlovian experiments on the researchers where they shock them if they don't generate beta-waves when playing games. Eventually, I'm sure they would learn to start being creative and use their frontal lobes to generate some *scientific* research.
I don't have difficulty with social association because I play video games. I play video games because I have difficulty with social association.
I'm going to lose karma for this.
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
The research... as "Mori" would love to call it.. is completely flawed. He did not account for a possibility that those who played videogames for several hours each day may have had "inherantly" low beta-wave activity. That would probably indicate WHY they were so interested in playing them, rather than doing something else, in the first place.
This "guy" needs to go back and redo his research.
All his data is gained "after the fact"... He did not take a test subject who had never played video games... expose him/her to video games for several hours aday for a sustained (preferably long) period of time... and then examin the results pre and post video game exposure.
For christs sake.. just look at what names the guy chose for his catagories...
"normal" , "Visual" , "Half VideoGame" and "VideoGame"
With names "that" creative.. I wonder what level his Beta waves are at.
Oh and by the way... E.E.G. testing and valuation is also variably baseless and flawed.. in a scientific sense it is possible that it would be purely coincidental (at best) that brain "wave" energy levels would correlate directly with thought process and patterns.
Rubbish and shame on him for even attempting "research" in such an amature manner.
...why aren't I in a vegetative state yet? .hack//sign
"man put in coma by video game" Wow... That'd almost be something out of
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
I play video games all the time and I don't have... uh... s..l...o...w... brain... uh.. think.. thingies.. er....
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
-grin-
Software should be free as in speech, but if we also get some free beer, all the better.
Personally, I think that #3 is by far the most important, but they are all worthy goals.
I don't, however, agree with the results of the study. Individual gamers will have as varying results as non-gamers in terms of mental development and social development.
I think the key here is not to only play games. Certainly, it would be dangerous to play games all of the time, forsaking all else, but 1-3 hours per day will not have damaging side effects.
As a rule, gamers should: play games at work, as a break from difficult tasks. You won't believe how relaxation and mental stimulation from a different perspective can help you look at the problem you were working on from a different perspective. Playing computer games is very good in this regard.
Next rule, gamers should play games at home when time allows, but also make sure that they have time to fulfill their household chores and responsibilities, as well as get some excercise - a few pushups, pull-ups, some spinning/stationary biking for 30 minutes a day is a good start.
The next rule that should be followed, is this: avoid playing computer games at the weekend. Do something else at the weekend - offroading, hiking, jet-skiing, horse-riding - all of these are good ideas. No, clubs and bars are not ideal. Acheiving #2 in your text by going to clubs and bars wouldn't be an acheivement at all.
If you follow these rules, and don't allow games to dominate, you should be fine.
Steven Woston
Lead Programmer, J-j-j-julius SoftwareStop playing WarCraft 3... It's enough that looking at all that porn is making you go blind, you hoser!
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Nonreversable? EEEK.
Now go away u metnal midgets I'm trying to play this fucking game. GRRRR.
oops.
*twitches*
----- Whats wrong with this picture? http://www.revoh.org:1234/whatswrong
It claims that video games can cause behavioural changes, such as lack of concentration [failing to read even the short article introduction on Slashdot], difficulty with social association [not getting any], and short temper [arguing non-objectively and in a personally attached manner as is common on Slashdot] . These effects are also thought to be, to some extent, nonreversible [continuing to not get any for the rest of your life]. It does not state that you are an idiot because you play video games.
Best Slashdot comment ever
"Nihon" == "Japan" in Japanese.
[insert witty comment here]
I've quickly scanned the responses, and nobody seems to have mentioned this (or if they did, nobody modded them up):
/. readers, I'd guess will have at some point gone to bed after a few hours playing Tetris, Minesweeper, or even those pen and paper grid based Logic Problems, and found themselves dreaming of grids or falling pieces. This in an example of your brain being rewired with new skills -- which depending on the game, may or may not be valuable skills in the real world.
The article doesn't mention what games they tested.
I'm sure most of us have played certain games to the extent that you feel your brain has been rewired: most
A recent (reprehensible IMHO) UK TV program ran an IQ test, a large chunk of which was to do with reasoning about rotating shapes. Playing a lot of Tetris has to be training for questions like that.
I've made kids play Solitaire in order to develop mouse coordination.
LucasArts point'n'click-ers train the mind in warped comedy logic
Quake trains the mind in lightning reactions and terrain-based strategy
Rhythm-action games train the mind in keeping to a beat (potentially useful to the budding drummer!)
etc.
The article is worthless unless it tells us what sort of game it's claiming to be harmful.
I don't get it you actually have to use your' brain to some degree playing RPG's and fantasy games....
- Marcus Brigstocke, British Comedian
(the Pac Man quote is also apocryphally attributed to Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989, and Karen Price, Nintendo Representative)
Enoc
Oh Shit
I've been playing video games since the mid80s. And I have probably played everyday for several hours. And on weekends, all day long.
Yep yep!
There was an article a few years ago claiming that if anyone put in around 20 years of focused thought into any one subject they would attain a genius level understanding of that subject. The example they used was of a family of chess players; a few daughters and their dad. The daughters do nothing but play chess and thats it, not sure if they had regular schooling or not, but all were highly ranked chess players.
2) Get laid. Get so good at it that you can walk into any social situation and walk out with someone you just met.
Next, I'll go to a homeless shelter to learn how to thrive in a tough economy ...
People who don't relate to others, get angry, and aren't very creative are more likely to (be geeks in general) play video games. That doesn't mean means the game causes theese traits.
also
Some people find some things irrelevant, others find those same things funny and history repeats itself...
Enoc
This looks like just another episode of "Predictive pop science", where some interest groups hires a 'researcher' to prove a point. Anyone with half a brain can cook up flaky stories like this that probably fool the lower 50-60% of the population, but the rest of us know this is pure hogwash.
.. ? Just pick your favorite extreme-stupidity group, ask them what they don't like, then pay some HB-1 guy in a white lab coat to make up a believable story so he can get famous and earn his green card.
Just look back when they were saying Doom and Quake should be banned because they 'caused' the Columbine massacre. We could push that further and say that Doom and Quake should be banned because, by 'causing' Columbine's events, they have led us all to hate Jon Katz to the point of slashing him open with a chainsaw and firing a rocket into his exposed ribcage.
And then
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Wouldn't it depend on the type of video game? I could see that playing a FPS type games for 7 hours a day would cause the subject to loose creativity, but what about the people that play RTS games? Wouldn't games like Warcraft3 cause more creativity, since they have to think in terms of strategy and tactics?
Real gamers want to know!
-Ed
docbrown.net
Graphic Design, Web Design, Role-Playing Games...all the good stuff
Ed Wedig
Graphic design services
docbrown.net
The Mainichi 'WaiWai" news site (http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp) is a clearinghouse of news stories from the Japanese dailies - the equivalent to a 'news' site in the USA that collected the most significant news stories from the Star, the Enquirer, etc. Take it for what it's worth, and go read about "Eager beavers diving into old pornos for new tricks" or this excerpt from "TV products put to bizzzzare uses!": '"I bought two vibrating diet belts. Of course I bought them to lose weight, but I realized that if I strapped them over my private parts, it felt unbelievably good. Recently, I've forgotten all about my diet," a 37-year-old woman says. "Instead of attaching the belt horizontally, I stick it on vertically, between my legs. Then I check out all the young guys at work and think about all the nasty things I'd like to do with them." '
OK, WSJ online it's not.
-Styopa
One mentioned right here.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
since the researcher had to play the video games he was reviewing, and thus fell under their EVIL INFLUENCE (TM) and had his brain reduced to mush before writing up his results.
This is your brain.
This is your brain on Quake.
Get the message?
dan.
If you can't set up a Windows box suitable for gaming, it's too late
While it's great for someone to finish their research with such fanfare, he really didn't leave us with anything useful. I've seen others on this board bring it up.
We need to know what kind of games. Does playing chess online reduce brain activity? That is a video game. He pronouncement is WAY to broad. He didn't define what TYPE of game. I'm sure that chess (more of a thinking game) affects the brain differently then a FPS (quake, unreal, etc), which are twitch games and use reflexs more then thought process. Now I'm not knocking those FPS players it is amazing to see some of them (and I see RL uses of this skill in the not too distance future with robotic/military advances).
Basically what I got out of the article was no different then this: "Moving your legs is bad for your health". Hah, right but HOW am I moving my legs? Am I running each day to keep fit? Or am I running for the cliff like a lemming.
Until he releases more information the article is about as good as the national inquirer.
My god is everything bad for me .... coffee, smoking, meat, sex and beer..... and now videogames.... Is there anything I can do that will not kill me ???
It seems that the type of game would make a difference. Some games surely are bound to increase intelligence not others, perhaps this could explain the conflicting results we get on game studies. Also, how do you define what a game is? Is coding perl a game, I know some hackers that will tell you that it is. Maybe he thinks a game is pin ball where I think a game is chess. Two completely different levels of thought are involved.
It's pretty obvious to me that the study is flawed. Even if you accept that this alpha- and beta-wave brain activity is a sensible measure of human activity, the fact that a lot of people described themselves as cranky doesn't imply a causal link. That's like saying being tan causes people to go to the beach. A non-quack study would get a very large group of people, randomly split them into two groups, monitor the the brain waves of group A (who are forced not to play video games), and monitor the brain waves of group B (who are forced to play video games for 6 hours per day). Each group is forced to watch the same amount of T.V. each day. Any idiot can tell you that you estabilish a causal relationship by changing one variable and comparing it with a control group. This moron didn't do that; all he discovered was that a lot of people who play a lot of video games are supposedly uncreative and cranky, whereas a lot of people who don't, are not. Hey, I have a new study: People who have cat litter boxes in their homes also seem to have cats. And people who don't have cat litter boxes, don't have cats. Therefore, cat poop causes people to get cats.
A classic example of faulty logic: All men are mortal. Socrates was mortal. Therefore, all men are Socrates.
Some people are cranky. Socially inept, cranky people play video games. Therefore, video games cause crankiness.
Beyond all that, this guy obviously has an agenda. "During childhood, playing outside with friends, not videogames, is the best option." And we are supposed to believe that this guy didn't do the study wanting to find this result? The acme of human objectivity in science, ladies and gentlemen.
I'm going to go gouge out my eyes.
I practice Martial Arts and study Zen Bhudism. The goal of both is to exist/act with complete focus and without the chatter of random thoughts common in the mind.
When I practice Martial Arts and when I play a Video game, if I'm really into it, I definately get into a mindless state where I simply exist in what I'm doing.
Sports competitors will tell you the same thing about how they feel during a competion.
This is a Zen experience.
00101010
I know this are going to be a quick list:
Mentalhealth.com
NASA
Violence
I don't know about you but having two separate studies, one from a "University" in Japan, and one from NASA, I am more likely to choose the side that NASA is on! ;)
It does seem strange that the Japan one says it causes ADD and the NASA one says it cures ADD! WTF?
MCDPeople who are against human cloning must be bitter they are not good enough to be cloned.
Were these subjects playing Chess, Doom, Civilization, what? I find it difficult to believe that ALL video games produce the same effects in people in general. Also, were they using a flying spot CRT, or an LCD screen? The brain processes these images differently.
The researcher noted that the people who played the most games "got angry easily, couldn't concentrate, and had trouble associating with friends."
What is the cause and effect here? Does game playing cause people to be social misfits, or do the begin playing games because they already ARE social misfits.
The interesting study would be to create a group of heavy game players from the 'normal' group, to see if their personalities change because of games.
Tom Brown
All roads lead to gnome!
Netnexus, home of Starcraft: Terran Legacy
Online Starcraft RPG? At
Dietary fiber is like asynchronous IO-- Non-blocking!
They make me fat too
It's all good.
Look how many comments there are...
( Read More... | 439 of 666 comments )
*gasp*
They're probably going to make the same claims about beer, I bet...
"At least I can't make a windows machine stable enough to run Neverwinter or my brain would be toast." If you're that inept, we don't WANT you playing NWN. Look, it's simple: get good hardware, install either Windows 2000 or Windows XP (pro, not that home crap), and then install all the newest drivers, then install NWN. Then patch NWN to 1.19. Wow, that was hard. Clueless moron.
Is leveled at the TM guys:
http://www.trancenet.org/research/index.shtml
If you look at a sportsman you'll find the same behavior once the learning part of the sport is done; or as Bruce Lee put it, "Before I started the martial arts, a punch was just a punch and a kick was just a kick. When I was learning the martial arts, a punch was not just a punch and a kick was not just a kick. Now that I have mastered the martial arts, a punch is just a punch, and a kick is just a kick."
So is the result that we have a bunch of gamers running around in Beta waves? Is this bad? The article says so, but every relaxation technique in the world whether it's yoga or TM or whatever is trying to get people OUT of alpha and into beta or slower brainwaves.
IMHO, if you're stuck in one pattern, that's bad; but otherwise, unless you go to your "power cave" and see a penguin say "Slide...." don't worry about it.
Fnord.
Short temper?
I'll be damned if they're taking away my games just because a bunch of stupid...ummmmm, errr....umumm, people...yeah, people are developing problems.
Why am I talking to you people anyways?
Magius_AR
It must cause less brain activity because even the most idiotic user could install a copy of windows xp but Taco can't (win2k is slightly more stable, but has a few more options when installing, so for the sake of simplicity I chose xp for this example. Either way they are more stable as a DESKTOP os then linux is). I think we should take this seriously. If someone who thinks of themselves as an experienced computer user is incapable of filling out a wopping 6 self explanitory dialogs then we might all be doomed.
You've got to be careful with statistics. One thing is to say that there is statistical link between playing computer games and being stupid, and other thing is to say that you became stupid because of computer games. It may be other way around: you may be playing games because you are stupid already. Or more probable, there is third factor (like social or something) that makes you stupid and makes you play computer games.
The article doesn't seem to say that a group of randomly selected people were forced to play video games, so I suppose that he tested those who already played hours of video games each day.
;-)
In that case, the link could easily be the other way around: people who got short tempers, don't plan ahead and are easily distracted are more likely than others to play video games (presumably because video games don't yell at them for being that way)
Seems much more likely to me...
(Of course this only applies to people who don't read Slashdot
I was playing Q3A last night and there were brains flying EVERYWHERE!!
between my linux/java/soap project, my .net headache project, my php project, my perl/mysql project(s), my asp maintainance, BEING A PARENT AND A HUSBAND, the crazy cat from hell, the band, the zine, friends, did i mention the baby?, etc...
I NEED SOME FREAKIN REDUCTION IN BRAIN ACTIVITY!
gimme something please!
if not neverwinter nights, give me some drugs. now!
please? calgon?
m.
http://www.pataphyics-lab.com
And your post made me find out where the thing actually originated, so thanks to you. I always thought it had been the Nintendo USA CEO the one who said it in 1989. Ah, the wonders of Internet search...
Enoc
Me lose brain!? Uh oh!
l os e_brain.wav
http://members.tripod.com/~MacOp/simpsounds/Me_
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Having said that, it's still likely to be true (unfortunately), but who's going to let a little thing like stupidity get in the way of their gaming?
This Topic got me worked up enough to actually go get a Slashdot UserID...
I'm starting to think that everyone on SlashDot is an expert in Experimental Design for Research, and that they have Statistics degrees! Every time a study comes out and gets posted on Slashdot, everybody is quick to jump on it saying,
"This doesn't prove causal relationships! Look at what they said about RedWine...",
or
"It doesn't say how large a sample group it was! This study is flawed!"
Guess what. Providing you read the article at all, you're not reading the study as it appears in a scientific journal! You're reading a dumbed down... simplified write-up on a news site for everyday people! Think about it, did you see an mention af what Stat Methods they used? Did you see any graphs or Data Plots?
The people on Slashdot, especially, should realise that News Outlets pick stories and spin them for greater drama to build readership!
I actually have a bit of upper-level psych. in my background and I've done enough experimental design and read enough Journal Articles to tell you this...
Most researchers have done YEARS of Statistics and more experimental design than I would ever want to dream of. They "know" that their research is not conclusive. In fact most studies state in the conlusion that they didn't take x, y, z into consideration, and this doesn't prove a causal relationship (because they usually don't), and more research is needed!. That is actually a fairly common statement in research papers. Why? The researchers want grant money for more research.
In short, if you've only read the News Write-up and not the Journal Article, don't pretend you've read the whole study. Oh, and if you haven't even read the article, don't post! (How big is the sample size... It WAS IN THE SECOND PARAGRAPH!)
I'm curious as to what kind of game they were playing... was it puzzel, was it FPS, sport-sim... ?
More importantly, were they playing against other people. I, for one, cannot play single-player console games. I HAVE to play against other people. You can bet that the "frontal" part of the brain that governs emotion and creativity gets used a LOT more when playing with and against other people.
Besides, I play games for 6-10 hrs/week, and I don't have a temper to speak of... not to mention I'm quite sociable (P.S., I also played LOTS of video games in my youth ~ like 50+ hrs/week starting from when I was 12 or so...).
Video games don't lower your intelligence! I mean, just last week I saved the entire world from annihilation using only a handful of lint, a safety pin, an uninflated balloon, and a rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle.
Look at the average message boards that gamers post to (like the comments at say blue's news. The best example are any sites that have a lot of fanboys.
i dated a guy who was addicted to video games.... he actually had better concentration while playing, and it did carry over into his job. as for a temper.. thats a funny opionin... he was as quiet as can be, and i never heard himraise his voice or anything, except for when i provoked it. maybe i was lucky in dating that particular individual who had too many boring qualities, but he was far from a emotional video game junkie...
"Knowledge is from books, Wisdom is from experiences"
Decrease brain activity? yeah right...ahh...guy go boom....good....finish my sentence for me, gotta frag.
I used to watch my nephew be unable to talk properly...
Unable to talk properly? In what way? Is it an inability or a decision? And what basis are you using for "talking properly"?
Why is it that everytime some halfway competent scientist makes a discovery bereft of decent evidence, the general public lap it up as Actual truth.
I would bet this scientist is just as ignorant as Hollywood Film producers and I cant begin to list the amount of films with comical portrayal of Computers and the people who use them.
People who aren't competent computer users tend to have severely impared learning ability, how many computer illiterate people do you know that dont even know how to setup the VCR without reading the manual 5 times, quite a few I bet.