Do video games stunt teen development?!

[TechJumper]

Check this out and tell me what you think:
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b7fc6a9025d.htm


TJ

(ill give my opinion- once I form one http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif)

[VERT]

Read this article the other day, but read another article a couple of months ago that said the complete opposite.

[Dudster]

http://www.sysopt.com/forum/biggrin.gif Sounds like joke science to me. He seems to be saying that any child who only plays games and doesn't socialise at all will suffer behaviour wise... Well, duh! Anyone could've told them that.

I've been playing games (a lot) for as long as I can remember and my behaviour was usually much better than a lot of my non game playing peers (especially in my teen years though I live in a fairly rough area) and I wasn't brought up particularly well (though probably better than a lot of my peers). If anything, games helped to keep my behaviour in-check as it cured any boredom. I certainly have the capacity for violence but I would only be so if I had to (defense).

I think the rise in violence in society is basically down poor parenting, human nature and a reaction to an increasingly violent society (catch 22). These days, society is obsessed with gangsters, hardmen etc. And it starts as early as junior school - "who's the hardest lad in year 10" n'all that. The most violent people I have ever met have never even played a computer game and vice versa.

Using the most sophisticated technology available, the level of brain activity was measured in hundreds of teenagers playing a Nintendo game and compared to the brain scans of other students doing a simple, repetitive arithmetical exercise. To the surprise of brain-mapping expert Professor Ryuta Kawashima and his team at Tohoku University in Japan, it was found that the computer game only stimulated activity in the parts of the brain associated with vision and movement.
LOL, what was the game? Pong?

[MiKe85]

I'd post an INTELLIGENT reply but that would just lead me to a long and boring post that would get me all worked up! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

[U-96]

Dudster, you are spot on IMHO.

I've had a computer and played computer games since 1983 - often to excess and obsession and the detriment of many other constructive hobbies - but the most I have seen of the inside of a police station is when I gave a statement because I was a witness to some drunk guy causing criminal damage to a shop window with a park bench. As you say, doubt he ever played Soldier of Fortune.

In fact the frustration caused by Pharoah or Civ makes me far more violent-mooded than Rogue Spear or Tekken http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif



[This message has been edited by U-96 (edited 08-21-2001).]