Monday, February 15, 2010

DANGER!!!!!!



Video games and health problems have been linked together for a long time. Although with studies of the gamers themselves, I would have to say problems are more likely due to bad choices in how long we play the games. Video games have become very popular all over the world, but with research that people have done we find that there are many positive effects and less negative effects, as long as it’s done in moderation.


Games like Metal Gear Solid 4, now have a program put into them so that after an hour of playing the game or so. It forces you to take at least a half an hour break from the game. I think this is a great idea, so that it causes people to get up and do something in the meantime.

The many health benefits from Gaming are:

• Therapy by using games as a way to relieve mental stress and other emotional problems. As well as boost motor capabilities and hand strength with people who have Erb’s Palsy.

• Pain management where hospitals are using games as a way for patients, to distract themselves from their injuries like burns.

• Hand-eye coordination for people who are a little slow on their reflexes.

• The last thing I could find games useful for was problem solving, by the use of puzzles or obstacles in games to create challenges to work the minds thinking abilities.

The risks for Gaming are:

• Addiction and increased violence (very low in cases)

• Epileptic seizures

• Auditory hallucinations

• Wrist, neck and elbow pain

• Obesity

Most of these are rare and in those cases gamers should stop playing. Almost all risks with gaming are because people play them for too long of a period. Gaming is a leisure activity and just like any other should be done in moderation. We as humans are supposed to have a balance of activities to keep our minds and bodies healthy, we become bored other-wise if we do the same things over and over. In other words playing games can be great, just don’t do that forever. Get up, go out and have some fun.

3 comments:

Unknown said...
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Anonymous said...

I was excited when I saw your blog because it's not very often that you see someone talking about the positive effects of playing video games.However, it didn't really seem as if you were wholeheartedly supporting video game playing. The way you just ended with all of the negative side effects sounded like a strange afterthought. You more or less just listed them and said "well, they don't happen often so let's forget about them" instead of actually arguing that they aren't that severe and that the positives outweigh the negatives. On the plus side, I did find all of the positive effects that you gave me very interesting and I felt that I learned something new. I did however find myself in want of more information to prove what you were telling me because it was such new information. It was not until I read the blog a second time that I found out the link to support your positive claims was at the beginning of the blog instead of next to the information that it supported. If it had been it would have been easier to understand but because you did not let me know that this link was what supported your claim it left me very confused for a moment and for a bit I did not believe you. You have to be more careful about where you put your links so that someone doesn't stumble across your blog and think that you're just making wild claims off the top of your head because the can't find your evidence.

Cap'n Fatback said...

Shinobi--

I do have to agree with Anonymous; the lists of positives and negatives need to be attributed to a source. Otherwise, they just pop up and look like you are crating lists on the fly with no support.

I always thought that the biggest risk of too much video game playing is the inability to get a date. ;)