[i]From the latest issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, Issue #170, Sept. 2003[/i]
[b]Videogames are bad for you...[/b]
[u]Games make you dumb[/u]
Leave it to Japan, the mothership of videogames, to come with a study finding that games damage the brain. At Sendai's Tokohu University, Professor Ryuta Kawashima discovered that Nintendo games arouse parts of the brain associated with sound and vision but do not stimulate other areas. "We will have a problem with the new generation of children who play games," Kawashima concludes. "The implications are serious for an increasingly violent society, and these students will do more and more bad things if they just play games and do not do other things like read aloud or learn math."
[u]Games isolate you[/u]
Consider the tragic death of Shawn Wooley, a young fan of Everquest who took his life after an online lover allegedly spurned him. Wooley's mother now run web-based support group On-Line Gamers Anonymous for people who have become isolated and outcast as a result of chronic game playing. It boasts 650 members and counting.
[u]Games addict you[/u]
Parents, spouses, and an increasing number of scientists are exploring the phenomenon of so-called "videogame addiction," most common among fans of massively multiplayer online RPG's such as Everquest. Addicts forgo work, relationships, and even food for the sake of their online play. Three recent cases in Asia involved young men at computer cafés who passed out at their PC's after marathon gaming sessions. Now, psychologists are getting in on the action: At McLean Hospital, a Harvard-affiliated psychiatric teaching facility, Maressa Orzack oversees the country's first computer-addiction services, a clinic offering counseling to compulsive gamers.
[u]Games screw up your body[/u]
Lately, game critics have set their sites on the damage done by game controllers: the buzzing, rattling devices that, they say, inflict pain on your paws. Last year, the British Medical Journal published an account of a 15-year-old kid who suffered burning sensations and inflammation in his digits as the result of spending seven hours a day on his PlayStation. Doctors determined that he was experiencing "hand-arm vibration syndrome" brought on by one too many nights at the controller.
[u]Games cause violence[/u]
Of all the problems critics have with videogames, none gets more lip service that this one. The controversy broke back in 1993 when Senator John Lieberman led a campaign against Mortal Kombat for its spine-ripping gore. He even dragged children television's host Captain Kangaroo in front of reporters to warn of "the lessons learned by a child as an active participant in violence-related videogames...lessons the thinking parent would shun like a plague. Indeed, it could become a plague upon their house." Since then, everyone from the Surgeon General to the American Psychological Association has attempted to link video violence with the real thing, but a conclusive, universally accepted study has yet to surface.
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[b]Videogames are good for you...[/b]
[u]Games make you smart[/u]
Studies released by both Manchester University and the University of Central Lancashire concluded that gamers who played for 18 hours per week exhibited the kind of hand-eye coordination displayed by professional athletes. Dr. Jo Bryce, who led the research, discovered that hardcore gamers went into a concentrated state of "flow" (you know, "the zone"), which allowed them to accomplish multifaceted tasks. She is not the only true believer. A recent study at the University of Rochester found that
kids who play action games on a regular basis are far better at processing fast-moving visuals than youngsters who do not get busy with the joypad. And NASA has developed a biofeedback system using PlayStation games such as Spyro the Dragon and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater to help build concentration skills in fighter pilots. A company called Attention Builders is marketing a home version of NASA's videogame wares ([url]www.attention.com[/url]) - just the
thing to power your brain before those midterms.
[u]Games improve literacy[/u]
Videogames were not meant to replace books. Nevertheless, critics like to complain about how all this game playing has whittled away the literacy rate. But games have been proven to do just the opposite. Psychologists at Finland's University of Helsinki found that specially designed videogames could help dyslexic children improve their reading abilities. And you do not have to be dyslexic to benefit. As any well-read gamer who has trekked through a modern console RPG will tell you, these games come with a novel's
worth of dialogue to digest.
[u]Games are social[/u]
Professors at Loyola University in Chicago recently conducted a study of the community surrounding Counter-Strike, the popular PC first-person shooter that is on its way to the XBox. Their findings: Such online games cultivate complex social interactions that defy the stereotype of the isolated gamer. For some reason, critics - particularly people who have never played games - cannot grasp the concept of socializing in a virtual space. But that is precisely what happened in shooters, in online RPG's like Everquest and Phantasy Star Online, and even in so-called Net parlor games like backgammon and chess. Games provide a means for social
interaction for teenage boys and blue-haired old ladies alike.
[u]Games relieve stress[/u]
While politicians and parents bemoan videogame violence, they fail to acknowledge one simple point: Games are a harmless way to blow off stress. After all, the fighting is virtual, the guns are fake, and the blood is pixelated. Even the most violent first-person shooters are little more than digital paintball. If people are so up in arms about videogame violence, why are they not decrying real paintball, which leaves player with golf-ball size welts? Meanwhile, researchers at Indiana University found that game playing causes the brain to release dopamine, a pleasure-inducing chemical. See, games are scientifically proven to make you feel good.
[u]Games heal the body[/u]
Hip physical therapists have found a surefire way to improve their
patients' rehabilitation process: Let them play games. Dr. Mark Griffiths, a psychologist at the U.K.-based Nottingham Trent University, conducted a study of how games are being used for physical therapy. "Much has been written about how boring and repetitive exercises are if someone is attempting to recover from an [injury], " he says. "The introduction of games into this context can be of huge benefit." His therapies range from using games to build muscles to training diabetic children to better self-administer their medication.
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I personally attribute to being able to type more efficiently and correctly due to PC games (MW4 series). I do agree with the violence in videogames is a little much, but 13 year old's should not be playing GTA3 anyways.
Other than that, I leave it up to you guys (and gals)! What do you think?
