[Discussion] This is your brain on video games

discussion of the effects of gaming on human brains, if any

another headline, this time claiming Video games really do make your brain rot.

Just more fear mongering or something to consider and weigh in the decision of how to spend your free time?

*note: thread need not be limited to this story, just starting us off with a recent one.

eta: From the same story

The findings are published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, but UK expert Professor Andrew Przybylski, of Oxford University, warned: ‘Extrapolating from small-scale and noisy studies like these is extremely problematic.

What that article failed to mention is playing 3D platformer like Mario 3D World increased matter in the hippocampus.

I'll try and dig up the other story I read that went a little more deep into discussing the findings, but the above article feels surface level at best and somewhat misleading.

It's a Daily Mail article. Fearmongering headlines are their bread and butter.

Slacker1913 wrote:

It's a Daily Mail article. Fearmongering headlines are their bread and butter.

ah yes, missed that little copyright dailymail at the end.

Counterstrike has no usable minimap, multiple maps, and multilevel maps. You are generally at a substantial disadvantage if you can't navigate the map mentally and with visual cues.

The best players can predict which part of the map enemies can occupy at any given point in the game, given map knowledge and their last known location.

The quote I read from the researchers was that no one should consider this as evidence that playing a particular type of video game can damage the brain.

How about establishing and nurturing a positive approach and focus on the good things games do for you?
I would be more than happy, if you contributed to the new thread I posted called

Game Based Learning and your Stories about Learning in Games

And help collect positive stories on what games do to your brain growthwise.
Instead of being annoyed by all the bad things that are posted about games...
Help create and strengthen a positive image of our favourite pastime!
Thank you, Thomas

Lenguan wrote:

How about establishing and nurturing a positive approach and focus on the good things games do for you?
I would be more than happy, if you contributed to the new thread I posted called

Game Based Learning and your Stories about Learning in Games

And help collect positive stories on what games do to your brain growthwise.
Instead of being annoyed by all the bad things that are posted about games...
Help create and strengthen a positive image of our favourite pastime!
Thank you, Thomas

Added the link for easier reference.

Honestly, I'd be interested in how these studies are set up. Most of them lack rigorous testing methods, controls groups and usually have too few subjects to have any real internal validity.

Lenguan, here at GWJ we do have a Gamers with hope call for submissions which I believe is still taking submissions, to help fight against the notion that gaming is inherrently evil and to point out the benefits. The initial story in this thread is indeed click bait, probably nothing more than tabloid trash being the Mail. That's on me, but nonetheless I think we may be able to have an interesting discussion of the affects of gaming on our brains, our society, etc, not just the perceived negatives but the positives too.

I'm not sure we'll ever see a proper scientific study. I believe the closest I've seen was from anthropology or archeology suggesting that simple games may have played a key role in early human society and helped us foster creativity but I can not locate the source on that at the moment.

Link to the actual research, but unfortunately the body of the paper itself is behind the paywall:

The hippocampus is critical to healthy cognition, yet results in the current study show that action video game players have reduced grey matter within the hippocampus. A subsequent randomised longitudinal training experiment demonstrated that first-person shooting games reduce grey matter within the hippocampus in participants using non-spatial memory strategies. Conversely, participants who use hippocampus-dependent spatial strategies showed increased grey matter in the hippocampus after training. A control group that trained on 3D-platform games displayed growth in either the hippocampus or the functionally connected entorhinal cortex. A third study replicated the effect of action video game training on grey matter in the hippocampus. These results show that video games can be beneficial or detrimental to the hippocampal system depending on the navigation strategy that a person employs and the genre of the game.

Note that the same thing is probably true of using GPS navigation systems, or any other system that does not require you to memorize and relate location data. Not just games.

The Mail just loooooves to tell everyone how those violent video games are what's wrong with this country, almost as much as they love to tell you how those 'millennials' are what's wrong with this country, or how those 'benefit scroungers' are what's wrong with this country, or how those 'foreigners' are what's wrong with this country, or how those 'weird Transgender types' are what's wrong with this country.

pyxistyx wrote:

The Mail just loooooves to tell everyone how those violent video games are what's wrong with this country, almost as much as they love to tell you how those 'millennials' are what's wrong with this country, or how those 'benefit scroungers' are what's wrong with this country, or how those 'foreigners' are what's wrong with this country, or how those 'weird Transgender types' are what's wrong with this country.

I'm pretty sure what's ruining this country is people telling me what's ruining this country.

Also, everything gives you cancer apart from things that prevent cancer. Although they're losing track because they have at different points claimed coffee does both.

Concave wrote:

Also, everything gives you cancer apart from things that prevent cancer. Although they're losing track because they have at different points claimed coffee does both.

Same thing with chocolate.

I'm, oddly enough, at an actual academic video game conference right now, so I really don't have time to weigh in on this particular paper. Maybe when I get back?