Children who play computer games for hours on end risk stunted brain growth and loss of self-control..

A study found that the thought processes required by computer games were too simple to stimulate crucial areas of the brain, leading to underdevelopment and consequent behavioral problems....

Prof Ryuta Kawashima, of the Tohoku University in Japan, said the greatest threat from computer games was not in their tendency to arouse aggression, as previously thought, but in the lack of mental stimulation they provided.

Prof Kawashima and his team measured the brain activity of hundreds of teenagers while they played a Nintendo game and compared it to another group doing simple arithmetic. The results showed that, unlike the math exercises, the computer game did not stimulate the brain's frontal lobe [an area which plays an important role in the repression of anti-social impulses and is associated with memory, learning and emotion].

(World Net Daily Internet Service, 8/20/01).

-- Cited on KneEmail