December 30, 2007
Researchers in Taiwan claim that playing violent video games may damage one's brain.Tawain Headlines reports on the work of Dr. Chou Yuan-hua, a psychiatrist at Taipei Veterans General Hospital. Chou studied 30 25-year-olds and found that playing video games caused decreased blood flow in the brain. The effect was more pronounced when violent games were involved.
Chou speculated that players who gamed for longer periods could damage the frontal lobe of the brain. From the news report:
Although no conclusions as yet have been drawn regarding what might happen if blood flow to these brain areas is diminished frequently, it is already known that frontal lobe damage can leave a person emotionally adrift, opening him or her up to odd mood changes and variations in social behavior and personality.
Comments
How many of the 30 participants experienced blood loss? If it was one out of 30, then one would venture he/she has another health disorder.
I am absolutely baffled with the results. I'm not a doctor, but I have never heard anything like this before, regardless of the activity (unless you count hanging upside/sleeping sideways). People pass out all the time exercising, due to improper breathing or being out of shape, which is commonly due to lack of oxygen rich blood reaching the brain.
I really want some details on this, if anyone can find it.
hmm. Chinese scientists say playing video games make you braindead.
you should probably go out and toil in the fields instead of relaxing anyway, since all those internets are teaching you how to think for yourselves.
Still, this is so weird that every day there's another study and the results are pure opposites of one another. There are never enough details on the results, either.
Well, Brain Age is a game specifically designed to stimulate the brain and isn't violent at all, so no.
One important thing I should note about all violent entertainment though: it always effects us. In fact, everything you see and experience becomes part of you and is bound to affect your mood, life, and personality at some point. I enjoy a good Serious Sam match as much as the next fellow, but the key is moderation.
But I'm curious and want to know more as well. Video games vary widely in content and quality, so it's difficult for one to credibly group all violent games together and say they all do the same thing awful things, and I wouldn't go so far as to say they cause brain damage at all. (Unless it's mindless drivel like Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing, Shrek n' Roll, or Manhunt 2 The Metal Gear Solid Wannabe.)
The problem with the report is that it just says that playing video games reduces blood flow, without listing specific games. Brain Age is a video game that has been proved to increase blood flow and many games include sections that are functionally identical to some of the challenges in Brain Age. Also, following the link, it lists that the blood flow was tested before and after gameplay, without listing what activities the individuals were conducting during those times. Thus, the only thing the study proves is that blood flow while doing whatever they were doing before hand is greater than blood flow doing whatever they were doing after playing video games. There is no information of what was being done during game play. For all the researcher knows, blood flow could have increased during game play and was decreased afterwards as a sort of rest period.
Listening to the american presidential debates also porbably qualifies.
I wonder if reading has the same effect?
This isn't a study that would surprise me coming from a doctor in the US. I say we just wait for a real doctor.
There's always going to be a research bias, and regardless of what they really want, they're going to announce any little factoid they can. Maybe there was a .5% change in blood-flow to the frontal lobe, but what about the rest of the brain? Maybe every other lobe is seeing an increased blood flow? Maybe There is more going on when a person is playing videogames besides a change in blood flow, don't you think?
Also, I think that the effects of violent media vary greatly depending on WHO is viewing it. Depending on what kind of person they are, they might be repulsed, excited, indifferent, or who knows what.
Key word in this post is SPECULATION. All of these studies are extremely limited compared to the broad spectrum of factors that should be considered when you're dealing with the human brain. Especially considering how often similar studies contradict each other, this data should be seen as meaningless unless it becomes part of a clear trend.
Without dismissing the theory out of hand, I'll say this study is definitely far too tenuous to stand on it's own.
I am also trying to understand how gaming is supposed to slow blood flow to the brain. I'm no scientist, it just doesn't make any sense at all.
This is your brain... (healthy brain)
This is your brain on games... (screwed up brain)
No, this isn't as catchy as I thought it would be, either.
What game were the test subjects playing? How much was the blood flow decreased? How positive are we that the area of the brain in question controls emotional response? How much had the person in question played that game before? Was he enjoying himself? What was blood doing in the other parts of the brain? All these questions will effect how the results could be interpreted.
If the subject was playing a game that sucked, or a game that doesn't accurately portray most games, that would skew the results. If the decreased blood flow was by an insignifigant amount, that could be an error in measurement or something else. If the test subjects had played the game a lot before, being emotionally uninvolved (especially if they weren't having fun) would make sense. The decreased bloodflow to emotional centers may have been because of INcreased bloodflow to other areas.
Overall, without looking at the actual test results, and without serious peer evaluation, we can't take anything this result says for truth, especially in light of studies that point to the opposite being used for the development of the Brain Age games.
junk science found as a great way to get money without doing any work!
key word... "may"
I think the results would be very different if the participants played a puzzle game, a first-person shooter, guitar hero, or a multiplayer game against other intelligent opponents.
3, 2, 1
Taiwan didn't ban Mass Effect, Singapore did....
What the hell?!
Please don't give JB more fodder to chew on by displaying your wonderful ignorance.
As for the study, yeah, assuming that decreased blood flow AFTER gaming correlates in any way to brain damage is... silly. Although I'll grant that Dynasty Warriors and brain damage might have some correlation :D
Thank you for the correction. I should have looked that up.
peoples republic of china: the one you hear about the most which by the way is not communist
then theres the republic of china: a whole different country, which is not even in the mainland, its a little island, they are where the oppositors to old china went.
anyways this study comes from the second china.
I think the results would be very different if the participants played a puzzle game, a first-person shooter, guitar hero, or a multiplayer game against other intelligent opponents.
theres a flaw in your argument there, multiplayer game and intelligent opponents, dont usually go together
either that or playing halo and counterstrike has given me glimpses of only the BAD multiplayer gamers
I read that in an FHM... >.> i really don't know what that means but for instance i read about this global killer asteroid in a Maxim once and heard about it on the Today Show 2 days later. Weird.
But to the point...this is a type of ammunition we can use daily to combat JT.