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Just out: study finds video gaming doesn't turn your brain to mush...

In a side study they found it does affect your ability to get other shit done, get a good night's sleep and maintain a normal relationship with the other 75% of the population who don't game. All things that may cause others to THINK your brain has turned to mush.

More like, “Study disproves previous generations baseless assumptions”

Nice to have the evidence backing it up, but I imagine the reaction of every millennial that's been gaming since they could speak is "no shit, mate".

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Exactly lol

Well, lack of adequate sleep CAN turn your brain to mush over time, but I get what you're saying.

BS I don't believe it! - All of the olds.

Maybe not but it's certainly not healthy for them to be staying up until 4AM playing games and watching hulu and youtube only to have to get up at 6:30 to get ready for school. Only to come home at 3:30 PM, set their alarm for 8:30 PM so they can sleep then wake up and do it all over again.

>... affect your ability to get other shit done...

I think that was covered... Unless you don't think of real life experience as important other stuff.

Learning moderation is a super valuable life skill. I’m letting my kids game as much as they want. But I’m also teaching them the downsides of not setting limits for themselves. If they stay up all night, don’t do their chores, etc., there will be consequences in their lives that they will suffer.

The entirety of adult life is a game of self control. I view it as a learning opportunity for them. Hopefully my strategy works out 🤷‍♂️

No shit - anyone who has half a brain cell. Its always just been a doom-and-gloom story spewed out by some loud idiots. Just like we see with a lot of things today and a lot of things in the past.

I mean that cant be correct. If you stay on a game for 20 hours is going to be detrimental.

Well you can say any "hobby" can do that. Regradless of what it actually is.

K/D is hardly relevant to all video games, but to take it a step further and generalize by saying video games can't/won't help in any cognitive way, I whole heartedly disagree.

Mechanics, architecture, resource management, critical thinking skills, problem solving, reading, hand eye coordination, time management, navigating electronic systems and menus, etc, etc...

There are a lot of benefits to being more open minded about such learning potential, because the future is here and computers aren't going away any time soon.

If that's what they like and what catches their interest, why shit on those interests to shoehorn them into doing things your way or learning things you like?

Sure, they probably can't list "Minecraft" on their college resume, but if they used that platform to learn to read at an early age, or can mentally conceptualize 3D structures really well because of it, the future results will likely speak for themselves in time.

The long and short of it is, you should capitalize on whatever your child is enthusiastic about to help teach them new things on the DL whenever you can.

Whether that's stick ball, musical instruments, video games, or something else entirely, the endeavor to teach them goes a lot smoother when they actually enjoy the activity and are subtly learning core skills that do carry over to RL situations, without having to force the square peg into the round hole by teaching them in a more conventional, but far less interesting (to them,) way.

Learning in an unconventional manner is still legitimate learning after all, and anyone who doesn't realize that is doing their child a real disservice.

TLDR - Knowledge comes in many forms, just because it comes in an unfamiliar package doesn't nessesarily make it worse.

The sleep thing I read is usually due to screens mimicking sunlight, or artificial light in the blue spectrum. This is why I have a program on my TV that tints the whole thing orange, which simulates a sunset.

Not saying gaming overall doesn’t affect health in negative ways, but the same can be said with just about any hobby taken to excess.

Yeah, my first thought was "does this mean people will finally stop insisting that parents limit their kid's gaming time to like 1 hour a day or whatever crap they're currently suggesting?"

The same is true for literally any hobby that is done in excess. Spend too much time on a single thing, you miss out on other aspects of your life.

My parents did the same. I could play as much as I wanted, but if I fell behind on my homework or my grades started slipping, they'd take the games away until they improved.

Doing ANY hobby for 20 hours is going to be detrimental, even the "good" hobbies like reading. It's a matter of moderation.

I'm calling bullshit on that lol.

Gaming does not lead to less social behaviors. If anything, it allows people who struggle with socializing access to safe environemnts to learn on.

The other issues you are referring to are procrastination and staying up late. Games can be used to do these things, but they are not the cause. I still procrastinate just as much even if I forbid myself from my hobbies, and back when I was a teen it didn't matter how early I stopped playing games I would still not fall asleep earlier than 2am because my issue was anxiety and depression, not gaming.

Games are not bad for you. They can be used to unhealthily cope if you are refusing to acknowledge a real issue, but the games themselves do not harm you.

Actually cognitive abilities are improved by gaming. And a high KD aa a result of measured practice and improvement will give your child valuable tools that they can use to tackle difficult tasks outside of games.

Playing music is not any better than playing games for your brain.

I do both, gaming has given me many more tools to be good academically (feeds curiosity, reinforces discipline, great brain excersice) while music has given me an artistic outlet. It has allowed me to express myself, relate to others, and earn social status.

If we focus only in cognition though, games do more.

genX/boomers: opinions unchanged.

Haven't they been demonstrated for decades to IMPROVE cognitive abilities because they improve hand-eye coordination?

Gaming is consumption. People practice being good little consumers of entertainment services. There is no creation going on, except by the programmers of the game who are employed by the billion dollar corporation pushing the game service.

shocker

It's almost as if their games

I'm not limiting our son's time much, but I make sure he has time off for homework and turns the PC off some time before he has to sleep. And no study will ever convince me that this is wrong. Limitless, excessive indulgence is just never a good thing, no matter the topic.

Games have no effect on children but a cartoon camel makes the smoke and funny frogs make them drink beer.

Citation for this “side study”?

You realize most people who play games aren’t doing that? Right?

“Regardless of duration”

I choose to believe this cause it validates the long hours I've spent gaming and now nobody will convince me it was wrong.

Not that I ever believed it to be wrong.

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Wow… You don’t have a very good sarcasm meter do you?

Thank you

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>The team looked for association between the students’ video game play and their performance on the standardized Cognitive Ability Test 7, known as CogAT, which evaluates verbal, quantitative and nonverbal/spatial skills.

Yes, but did the team measure mood regulation and executive functioning related to prioritization, organization, task-switching, working memory, etc.?

Everyone here should check out HealthyGamerGG on YouTube. He's a gamer and a psychiatrist that helps people on a variety of issues. One of them I remember watching is about how people that play a lot of video games don't know how to set realistic goals for themselves in life because video games teach you this oversimplified linear path to success which doesn't map onto reality well. Gamers are really good at working towards the goals but not setting the goals. And so because of the latter problem they can suffer from mental health problems.

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It was just mental health issues the entire time!

If you go even further back, there was a bunch of people who thought kids watching TVs was rotting their brains and ruining their imagination.

But oh look, a bunch of those kids became creative movie-makers themselves later.

Have you ever heard of any other kind of hobbyists dying in their chais because they couldn't stop for days on end though?

Drinking, fucking, a mix of the two. Gambling. I'm sure there are more vices out there than you or I can muster up at the moment.