Videogaming Keeps the Brain From Aging 255
Ant wrote to mention a Globe and Mail article stating that videogames keep the mind young and help in quick focusing on different tasks. "A body of research suggests that playing video games provides benefits similar to bilingualism in exercising the mind. Just as people fluent in two languages learn to suppress one language while speaking the other, so too are gamers adept at shutting out distractions to swiftly switch attention between different tasks. A new study of 100 university undergraduates in Toronto has found that video gamers consistently outperform their non-playing peers in a series of tricky mental tests. If they also happened to be bilingual, they were unbeatable."
Awesome (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Awesome (Score:2)
Re:Awesome (Score:3, Funny)
No camping! (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, whatever. Dude!! Check out this score! w00t!
Now.. what were you saying?
Re:No camping! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No camping! (Score:2)
Girlfriends Have Known This For Years (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Girlfriends Have Known This For Years (Score:5, Funny)
It's True (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's True (Score:2)
Or Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Or Maybe... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Or Maybe... (Score:2)
Extreme Single Tasking (Score:3, Funny)
Someone recently referred to raid healing in WoW as "health-bar whack-a-mole". You spend several hours staring intently at one small section of your screen, clicking a mouse button in response to changing colours. and they wonder why healers go a little crazy with the DPS occasionally.
Re:Or Maybe... (Score:2)
Re:Or Maybe... (Score:2)
Re:Or Maybe... (Score:3, Interesting)
coincidence != causality
God, if that is the state of students today... you have to unlearn them horoscopes and tarot cards and whatever else new age spirituality where they warp coincidences into something predestined. Somehow I don't feel so bad about our classes trying to hammer in "corrolation != causality" anymore.
I rule! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I rule! (Score:2)
Re:I rule! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I rule! (Score:2)
Re:I rule! (Score:2)
Re:I rule! (Score:2, Funny)
int main(void)
{
printf("You don't speak in computer language? What are you doing on Slashdot?");
return 0;
}
Re:I rule! (Score:2)
10? That seems kind of high for the average programmer with an average amount of experience. Is that with true fluency or just passing knowledge?
With passing knowledge, I can learn one in a day. With fluency, some would take months depending on the size of the langu
Re:I rule! (Score:2)
Ahaaa! (Score:5, Funny)
Exercise (Score:4, Interesting)
Well OK, games are often about solving problems and getting around situations which try to trick you.
I think real world exercises would be of equal benefit, assuming that the exposure is broad enough, but this at least confirms that simulations are a good way of training people, which has been understood in aerospace since the 1960's.
Motivation (Score:2)
Yes, but why would anyone work so hard on real world exercises?
Re:Exercise (Score:2)
What world do you live in? 99% of the game playing that takes place today consists of:
1) Training control combinations to master combat
2) Searching forums for answers when you have to think
3) Hitting on hairy fat guys pretending to be chicks
wish it worked for me. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:wish it worked for me. (Score:3, Funny)
Oooh, a bird!
Well, gaming may be an effect, then... (Score:3, Interesting)
I have ADD, I have a terrible time focusing my attention, but when I do, it locks on harder than a bell hop at a bunny club. In any case, I tend to play games for the exact reason that they give me something to focus on. Gaming really helps me to relax at the end of the day and gives me a bit of a break from the maelstrom of conflicting signals we encounter throughout our day to day lives. I'm guessing that I'm not the only one, and that many people with concentration issues are drawn to gaming as a kind of
Re:wish it worked for me. (Score:2)
And my whole life... (Score:2, Funny)
the study i s ryte (Score:5, Funny)
long liv vid. gamnes!@ keeping us yung 4 ever!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:the study i s ryte (Score:2, Insightful)
Or types like that.
Moral of the story (Score:4, Funny)
To stay young, play:
Halo: El Combate Ha Evolucionado
Actually... (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe this is good, maybe not. If this is training people to move on and solve the problem, even though they understand that there is a problem with the validity of the sentence, then it is a good thing. On the other hand, if they are able to do better because don't even notice the problem, then maybe it's not so good. I've seen plenty of times where everyone's so focused on solving a problem that they don't realize they're solving the wrong problem.
Re:Actually... (Score:5, Interesting)
When you learn a second language, you are able to more easily identify the structural components of language (ie: grammar) when comparing the two side-by-side. A monolinguist will be more likely to assume that the grammar of his language is universal; a polylinguist will understand that grammar is subordinate to language.
Re:Actually... (Score:2)
Re:Actually... (Score:2)
I'm a monolinguist wh
Re:Actually... (Score:2)
Your point might still
I suspect it's just that (Score:3, Interesting)
- that wolves, or for that matter insects, carry coins or pieces of armour, or that you can get a 6 ft two-handed sword as loot on a 1 ft rabbit
- but, conversely, things you'd expect each of t
Woo (Score:2)
Does this mean my brain has started regressing and soon I will have the mental age of 5.
Re:Woo (Score:2)
Mental agility is a choice. Videogames help! (Score:3, Interesting)
I personally play a ton of video games still in my mid-thirties and support this wholeheartedly. The thing about video games, to me, is that they constantly challenge your mind.
I remember a gentlemene that was in his seventies telling me once that he kept mentally spry simply by reading, doing puzzles, and the like. He said that most adults are effectively senile early on because they quit reading and generally idle in front of TV. TV bores me; it doesn't challenge you to do much of anything except look, so I'd imagine that ANYONE who plays any kind of games requiring use of their brain would be a step up on people who don't.
Anyway ... I play to be playing games until I can't see and hear them anymore. Hopefully in my old age we'll have decent VR and can simply "plug in" ;)
Cause or Selection? (Score:2)
I see this sort of thing all the time. A week or so ago, there was an article in the (Canadian) Globe and Mail about some study that indicated that shorter people live longer than taller people by (as I recall) 1.5 years per inch. I assume that this is at least partly genetic characteristices that,
Re:Cause or Selection? (Score:3, Interesting)
You're right, they haven't proven causation. However they have a plausible mechanism (exercising the mind improves it). The alternative hypothesis (that people play games because they have certain mental strengths) seems less likely. Either way it'd be easy to establish causation in this case.
Re:Cause or Selection? (Score:2)
Getting a bit off topic, bu
Correlation not Causation (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Correlation not Causation (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Correlation not Causation (Score:2)
Re:Correlation not Causation (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Correlation not Causation (Score:2, Insightful)
they surveyed 100 college students.
100 is a very small sample size. The correlation my not even be there.
Longer Mental Efficiency for Species (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if the type of game or level of difficulty have any effect either. I find today's games are a lot more complex than when I was young. Yet you still see young people able to master them. Perhaps this will enhance the effect due to the additional hand-eye coordination and problem solving skills needed to navigate in a modern first person shooter (where vertical/rotational perspective has to be tracked independently of actual character movement) vs. the simple side scrollers we started on (like Super Mario Bros).
Like the idea long ago that 65 years was very old age one would be lucky to make it to, perhaps someday the idea of the mentally feeble old man will be tossed as people stay sharp in mind far into their twilight years.
Re:Longer Mental Efficiency for Species (Score:2)
(I suppose you do learn to move without stereoscopic vision or feedback from your muscles and inner ear.)
Re:Longer Mental Efficiency for Species (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting, although gamers already know this... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Interesting, although gamers already know this. (Score:2)
There must be a disipline of user interface undesign within game developent. I must remember this when I am interviewing new UI designers.
My point (if I have a point) is that games are not like any other software, and increasingly are not like other things which employ UI design principles.
Re:Interesting, although gamers already know this. (Score:4, Interesting)
Take my father, for example. He's been driving since he was in high-school, so I'm pretty sure he's caught onto that. He's got an IQ of like 140 or so, so he's no idiot.
Now, place a Playstation 1 controller in his hand and let him play a racing game. Pick an easy one with just the analog stick, brake and gas. (Yes, I've done this.)
The result is pathetic. He actively WANTS to play it. He asked for it. He repeatedly runs into the walls, forgets which controls are which (There's only 2!) and generally just fails at the game. He played for a few hours with the same results. He asked me like 3 or 4 times over the first hour or so what the controls were. (Admittedly, the last time was a confirmation, not a question.)
This is something any kid I can name would be able to do quite easily. He did not grow up with video games of any sort, and does not touch-type.
He's an amazing industrial engineer, but the simplest of video games eludes him. It's not the complicated UI, it's a thought-pattern he never developed. Maybe if he spent enough time at it, he could pick it up, but he never will. He's got too many things to do that are actually fun for him.
I think the study fails to recognize that there are thought-patterns associated with being a good gamer, but gamers definitely tend towards more agile thinking and better motor skills, at least for the hands.
Re:Interesting, although gamers already know this. (Score:2)
Re:Interesting, although gamers already know this. (Score:2, Insightful)
For the psx, there's just a
Re:Interesting, although gamers already know this. (Score:2)
turn slowly = tap... tap... tap
while
turn fast = taptaptaptaptaptap
I've found that as I get older, the harder it is to play games that require this. For instance, playing Gran Turismo 4 , I find that it's harder to control the cars as well as when I played the first one. note that I don't like the analog pad; maybe it's my controller, but it is way too sensitive.
Re:Interesting, although gamers already know this. (Score:2)
Re:Interesting, although gamers already know this. (Score:5, Informative)
It's an excellent book and well worth the time and money. Covers a huge range of topics from watching TV to playing Grand Theft Auto, and it does so in a well informed and enlightening way.
And Zelda... (Score:2, Interesting)
I think the most intriguing part is where he reviewed about 5 minutes in the mind of someone playing Wind Waker. He litterally has to use up pages and pages of hierarchical lists to demonstrate the thought process, and then at the end says, "this is something like 1/100th of the entire game". Having played games in the series, I think he hit the nail on the head.
My only qualm with the book is that he originally had setout to do a book about video games, but then realized that his theories paralleled other
Re:Interesting, although gamers already know this. (Score:2)
It's actually quite sad that video games are so hellishly complicated. I'm no slouch, and I need an hour or two to competently play a new game. Games even have 'training mode' where you can hone your skills. Gimme a break. These aren't 'mental skills' - they're learned behaviors. What happened to people who just like to play video games? Why does there hav
Re:Interesting, although gamers already know this. (Score:3, Interesting)
Learned behaviors are mental skills. Seems our brains are geared more for reacting to events around us than to ponderous analysis. This makes sense if you think about our evolution: Which is going to let you live longer to successfully breed, thinking about running away from the obvious danger, or just running and maybe thinking about it later.
Some suggest that we do actual thinking only to the point where we find a valid, working reaction. We then
Actually, here's another idea (Score:3, Insightful)
It's improved my memory (Score:3, Insightful)
Multitasking? (Score:2)
Comment posted, time to slaughter some more aliance care bears!!
Re:Multitasking? (Score:2)
I feel almost normal now!
The trade-off (Score:2, Insightful)
(Not to mention the increased number of opportunities to meet chicks, unless of course you are this guy
http://media.putfile.com/PurePwnage-WoWisafeeling [putfile.com]
Europe vs US (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Europe vs US (Score:5, Insightful)
I bet your charts are full of US and UK music in English, I bet your TV channels have English language shows with subtitles, and you are currently posting on an English language website.
Contrast my experience as a Briton learning French: there are no French songs in the charts, my only opportunity to see French language shows is TV5 without subtitles and there are no French language websites that really grab my interest although I'm still looking around.
Learning other languages you have it even more simple given that French, Spanish and Italian all have a lot in common, and Dutch, German, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian likewise.
If you could speak a language very different to your own with little to no exposure to the language outside lessons I'd be more impressed, as it is mainland Europeans have it very easy with regards to being multilingual and your arrogance is misplaced.
Re:Europe vs US (Score:2)
english is similar enough to most european languages, especially to dutch. anyway, taking language courses without being exposed to that particular language can be sufficient as long as you keep practizing.
i used to speak a bit hebrew, many germans speak russian or even latin (both with a gross accent though).
the german abitur (roughly comparable to the british a-levels) compulsory includes two foreign languages and many pupils even take three (popular choices are latin, english
Re:Europe vs US (Score:2)
Re:Europe vs US (Score:2)
Well, I'd certainly put a big gap between (German and Dutch), (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish). I'm norwegian and I can mostly understand swedes and danes (actually more than they tend to understand me), but the other two are quite hopeless without education. Hell, I speak (or at least spoke) a very good german, I've been taken for being
Re:Europe vs US (Score:2)
That's a fair assessment, since everybody everywhere is stupid.
Re:Europe vs US (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Europe vs US (Score:3, Funny)
Don't worry, it's mutual.
Well you just proved that americans are stupid (Score:2)
Laugh it is funny
americans are stupid-or funny? (Score:2)
Re:Europe vs US (Score:2, Informative)
I think I'm bilingual... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Just what I need... (Score:2)
otoh, anyone know where the latest download of Dark Castle 3 is?
Higher education actually helps gaming (Score:2, Interesting)
When I recently played Warcraft (haven't played it for three years or more) I've found out that I'm applying the stuff I've been studying. Particulary, using width-searching when I'm developing my home base. As a result, I'm beating the computer all the time and often even some of my hardcore-gaming friends.
Well, if I haven't entered university, I would
I for one... (Score:2)
the human brain... (Score:2)
If you don't use it, you lose it. But if you do use it, then you get better at it.
What is it? Whjat ever it is that you focus on and apply, mentally....
Pues claro (Score:2)
Exercize the mind, mind is healthy.... (Score:3, Insightful)
But more importantly, as I said, what about the body? I'm pretty sure it isn't helped by those 48 hour MMORPG maratons. Really want to have the mind of a 12 year old in the body of a 75 year old... when you'r thirty, or maybe forty? Really?
I think I'll diversify a bit more myself. Maybe pick up another language... or I dunno... not game so much.
Just one more level.
The Medical Breakthrough of the Century - (Score:2)
A single player two-game tetris handheld that provides verbal instructions and tells jokes about Soviet Russia in English, Spanish, and Russian.
YEAH BUDDY.
Re:The Medical Breakthrough of the Century - (Score:2, Funny)
also useful for stroke victims? (Score:3, Interesting)
On a serious note, I apparently had a minor strokelet a couple years ago that left me unable to understand the color red in the context of traffic lights, stop signs, tail lights, etc. Red means stop, of course, bear with me here. When I see red in any more or less urgent context involving driving a car, red is simply invisible.
I have to TELL myself, in words, what it means. I've got the tickets to show for this weirdly anecdotal condition, and I've learned to love my 2000 Honda Civic's ABS and V-Tek engine in consequence. That was then.
These days, several months after the worst of these episodes (it was never life-threatening, fortunately), my "red reflex" has rewired itself almost back to normal -- and the only major change in my lifestyle has been videogaming. Post hoc ergo propter hoc and all that jazz, Doc, but I think there's something to it.
Flawed article ... (Score:2)
This appears to be pure editorializing. The closest evidence that gets cited to support this claim are the following quotes:
Saying that your brain might grow up differently is a far cry from sayin
Videogaming keeps the brain young? (Score:2, Funny)
In 50 years: (Score:2)
Re:Hmmm (Score:2)