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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.
> I've played a lot of strategy games in my life [...] these games have made me MORE intelligent by finding different solutions to different problems.
Since you've master those problems, here are some slightly more difficult problems for you to tackle:
1) Start a new company, grow it to the point where it employees hundreds of people, and go public for millions. Repeat.
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.
you get the idea...
I find these games to be much more challenging and rewarding than most video games.
The training of video games does NOT necessarily translate to real life.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
I think there's a very, very simple reason gaming decreases brain activity... ... Because games make you relax.
When people are tense and winded-up, the brain has a high activity (lots of alpha waves). When people wind down and start feeling relaxed, brain activity goes down.
Lots of people play exactly for this reason: it makes them relaxed.
People who game regularly quickly get into the relaxed mode when they start playing. Their brains are conditioned to relax once they hit the 'start' button.
People who never play computer games, find it hard and challenging to play, so their brains go on having a high activity.
I think we would get exactly the same results if we studied people who meditate regularly, and compared them to people who never meditate.
The people who meditate regularly would wind down quickly once they started, and their brain waves would calm down. The people meditating for the first time wouldn't experience any relaxing effect, so their brains would go on having a high activity.
Winding down brain activity is often seen as something desirable.