Do video games fry brains?

In my opinion certain video games fry the brains of young and impressionable brains. I think that someone 12 years old and up can handle mature rated games. Maybe our rating system should be based on IQ. But anywho I'm just worried because I have a brother turning 9 fairly soon he's very impressionable, has a low IQ and has a thing for violence. That and its probably not a good combonation with him playing Vice City everyday of the week (his favorite weapon is the chainsaw or the minigun).

I wasn't allowed to play M rated games till I was 14. I have no interest for the super violent games (GTA, Postal 2) most of the M rated games I have are Rainbow Six, OpFlashPoint and games like that. I do have resident evil for GC and it scares me . Some of my friends played M games when they were younger and they all turned out..uh...as idiots. I didn't see any R rated movies till I was 13 or so. There are some VERY morbid people in my class who consider Freddy vs Jason and American Pie the hight of entertainment so I think that says it all. Kids arent mature enough until they are at least 13-14 and maybe not even then. But I would say that games in general do not fry brains, its the content, just like movies and even books. (Lord of the Flies freaked me out in 7th grade)

Me personally I only watch rated R or play M rated games if they are supposed to be good for things other than sexual content or blood and gore. Examples being for games Halo and Tom Clancy games. I would have to agree with you RogueX that it is the content. I wonder if there is a a test to mesure maturity. This could help the ESRB rating system a lot. I think one problem is that parents don't bother looking at what their kids are buying. All the parents think their kids are mature enough. All my friends are in the gifted club their IQs are high and they own few or no mature rated games and the ones the have are newer games they bought recently. I would like to do some kind of survey

I have worried about the effect of videogames upon the mind. Violence, however, I do not think is an issue. it MAY be, but I seriously doubt it is based on my own experiences.

I was relatively young when the whole mortal kombat craze started. that is one of the most violent games I have seen, but it doesn't hold much of a candle towards whats been available for the last 6 years. Resident Evil, for instance, is something that worries me as something impressionable. Same thing goes for all of those crappy horror movies I stay away from.

My point is, I was all into Mortal Kombat and street fighter and things like that, but I am not one to be ultra violent. I mustve seen and done like hundreds of fatalities and stuff like that, but it had no impact on my personality. I do not like violence, nor do I condone it.

How considerate of you to be worried about your brother. Just pay attention to him and help him learn throughout his life. Your patience with him and ability to instruct him will go far. He will do fine if you do just that.

[edit on 6/17/2004 by AlnilamOmega]

Video games do not fry brains. However, a 9 year old playing a game intended for a 17 year old can have some lasting effects. He can become desensitized to violence. The games have ratings for a reason. Why do your parents allow this to happen? Would they let him go to a NC-17 movie? Just about the same thing.

Now me personally, I play GTA Vice City and it has the opposite effect on me. I live in SoCal and the traffic especially the idiots driving in the traffic are enough to make me want to road rage. Do I? No. I just wait to get home and harmlessly kill some digital residents of Vice City.

I have 3 small children of my own, the oldest being an 8 year old boy and he is very impressionable. That is why the XBox and PS2 are for me and the Gamecube if for my kids.

BTW, I am 33 years old and have never tired of playing video games. I think I read somewhere that the average age of the video gamer is like 28 years old.

Originally posted by AlnilamOmega
Resident Evil, for instance, is something that worries me as something impressionable. Same thing goes for all of those crappy horror movies I stay away from.

See Id sooner be afraid of kids practicing foolish martial arts moves from Street Fighter than I could forsee a kid becoming so diluted that he starts seeing people as zombies and blowing them away.

The stretch of insanity required is too much for me to fathom. But we have seen kids mimicking WWF moves and killin people. I think that fighting games do make people agressive, but if your intelligent you welcome your agressive nature and use it for productive purposes.

Originally posted by cyberdude78
In my opinion certain video games fry the brains of young and impressionable brains. I think that someone 12 years old and up can handle mature rated games. Maybe our rating system should be based on IQ. But anywho I'm just worried because I have a brother turning 9 fairly soon he's very impressionable, has a low IQ and has a thing for violence. That and its probably not a good combonation with him playing Vice City everyday of the week (his favorite weapon is the chainsaw or the minigun).

I agree to an extent that violent video can influence young children's thinking and perception of situations, but i also think that they get violence and such from many other sources... like movies, television, news... real life... Real life can be more twisted than video games. Look out your window or take a walk to the bad side of town...

IMO video games are a scapegoat for the violent and disturbing society and world that we live in.

Read these 2 articles. Also notice on the game there is a rating But I guess you missed that or don't pay attention

Video games promote aggressive behaviour
Playing violent computer games can make people more aggressive, according to new research.
Jan Howells, vnunet.com 26 Apr 2000
Playing violent computer games can make people more aggressive, according to new research.

Studies carried out by Dr Craig Anderson from Iowa State University of Science and Technology, and Dr Karen Dill, from Lenoir-Rhyne College, found that violent video games can be more harmful than watching TV or films because they are interactive and often ask the gamer to identify with the aggressive character.

Both studies concentrated on notably violent games such as Mortal Kombat and Wolfenstein 3D. One of the two studies found that violent video games promoted both aggressive behaviour and delinquency. The relationship between games and aggressive behaviour was stronger in men and in individuals who were already habitually aggressive. The second study also found that 'laboratory exposure' to a graphically violent video game increased aggressive thoughts and behaviour.

The studies say violent video games were a likely factor in the Columbine Massacre last year when two US classmates gunned down teachers and classmates before turning their weapons on themselves. Both boys enjoyed playing so-called 'shoot'em up' video games including Doom, a game licensed by the US military to train soldiers to kill effectively.

The studies conclude: "The present results confirm that parents, educators and society in general should be concerned about the prevalence of violent video games in modern society, especially given recent advances in the realism of video game violence.

"The more realistic the violence, the more the player identifies with the aggressor. The more rewarding the video game, the greater potential for learning aggressive solutions to conflict situations."

The research is published in the American Psychological Association's Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and posted on the internet.

Official: video games fry the brain
Japanese research 'proves' lasting ill effects
Nick Farrell, vnunet.com 10 Jul 2002
Japanese boffins claim to have proof that spending hours playing video games can damage your health.

A study of 240 people, conducted by professor Akio Mori of Nihon University, showed that prolonged playing can cause stress and a loss of concentration.

The work focused specifically on the prefrontal region of the brain, which governs emotion and creativity.

Those who played video games the longest showed lasting ill effects, and ended up using less of their brains even after they had finished.

Professor Mori told the Mainichi Daily News: "Many video games stir up tension and a feeling of fear, and there is concern that this could have an effect on the autonomic nerves.

"During childhood, playing outside with friends, not video games, is the best option."

The report is to be presented to the Society for Neuroscience in the US later this year.

Originally posted by Agent47

See Id sooner be afraid of kids practicing foolish martial arts moves from Street Fighter than I could forsee a kid becoming so diluted that he starts seeing people as zombies and blowing them away.

The stretch of insanity required is too much for me to fathom. But we have seen kids mimicking WWF moves and killin people. I think that fighting games do make people agressive, but if your intelligent you welcome your agressive nature and use it for productive purposes.

That's an excellent counterpoint. It is more likely that someone would go around and want to fight people as opposed to seeing people as zombies. However, that's not what I meant. Those kinds of games and movies only serve to impression people in negative manners. Maybe not a violent one, per se, but it serves as a conditioning agent nonetheless. I hate the double standard that certain western media has for allowing the proliferation of graphic horror movies while at the same time diminishing and censoring real-life horrors like what's happened to the Iraqi population as a result of DU and a decade of sanctions (not to mention Maddas Hussein, if you remember that silly old joke).

I also really liked your last statement. That is one of the most intelligent statements that I have heard in a long time. It is true that even the 'worst' of our virtues can be converted into positive strengths.

I have to disagree with most of you here.....

I do agree with sillinous:

IMO video games are a scapegoat for the violent and disturbing society and world that we live in

Ive played video games since i was in elementary school and, yes, they often included digital pixels of fakes characters duking it out "violently". I turned out more of a pacifist than anything, but games are a great outlet for feelings that usually come out one way or another.

Desensitization can be a result, but I dont think most people really see the game characters as real people.

My feelings are that people find it easy to connect violent games as a cause for violent behavior, but I think its moreso that violent people find violent games more fun and so you see more violent people playing violent games. Of course violence is relevant and I think maybe 2% of games could be considered too violent for someone over 15 yrs old.

In any case, if someone is so impressionable that they start fighting/doing violent things due to some game maybe its time they go play outside or something

One of the times when violence can be very damaging is when children are not shown the consequences of the violence.

In cartoons and some music videos, do you ever see what happens after the person is shot? the surgery, pain, rehabilitation, funerals, mourners, etc? No, the person is exactly the same. In my opinion, this is very damaging.

If you or the kid are so stupid as to go "Hey, in GTA VC I stole a car and ran around running people over. I can do it in real life!" You deserve to be shot. For the rest of us, we are gonna flip the bird to the people who cut us off then go home and run people over in Vice City. I played Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. I played Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem, so forth. I play GTA series, I played State of Emergency, but guess what? I don't kill people. I may have a few on a list, like George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, my old Math Teacher, so forth, but I don't do it cause I know it is illegal. Just cause those idiots play violent games and copy them doesn't mean they are to violent. Just that those people were too stupid. Columbine kids were violent, Doom didn't make them violent. If you were to have Ghandi play Doom for 10 days straight, it wouldn't make him violent. If you made me play Doom for 10 days straight I wouldn't be more violent, I'd be just as violent as I am now.

I'd much rather have a nine year old blowing off some guys head in a video game, then going to school and doing it for real. And if your comeback is, "Well, what if they get ideas from Video Games?"
Who do you think invented video game? A guy, which at one point was a child, who had most likely the same ideas then as he does now. Give kids a break. If you are so worried about them, try talking to them. So many parents today won't let their child do anything. They try so hard to get video games, movies, and music banned, that they forget about the reason they are doing it......their kids. If you care about your kid, turn off the game system if you don't like it, and read them a book. Talk about their day. Ask them if they want to go out and do something. Spend time with your kids, dont diminish them, love them. If you care about what they do, you should care about what you do WITH them.


And if you want to talk about violence, lets talk about how more than 100 of the topics on the boards right now are about Nick Berg, the man that got his HEAD CUT OFF. But that never crossed your mind right? Sure, stealing a car in a video game will corrupt are kids, so we tell them to watch the news. Boom! There is Nick Berg, or videos from Iraq, or a murder in the area, or a fire that killed a child. For gosh sakes people, everything around us is violent. The war in Iraq is violent, the Nick Berg video is violent, GTA is violent, my post is violent its all violent. Tell a child to stop playing a game in this country, and I'll show you a child fighting in a War for this country.

[edit on 17-6-2004 by MKugs]

I think the reason that video games are the scapegoats is becuase of people being uninformed. Just like in that report released in 2000, it mentioned Doom as being used to train soldiers yet the public had Americas Army by then (I think). Just like Dungeons & Dragons was used as a scapegoat even though the games I've played in and heard about have all been positive and fun, we always play the good guys. (BTW I consider D&D better than ANY current video game, problem is finding players) They still consider Doom as being "ultra-violent" while there are PG-13 movies that are far more violent. R movies are simply beyond anything I've ever seen in a game. Like posted above, the news is more graphic and desentisizing (sp?) than games. Sadly, I'm rarely phased when I see 3 people dead here, 2 people dead there. This might be more of a mental "block" than anything. Similar, but not as dramatic as what soldiers so in a warzone.

Anyway I'll stop rambling and get to the point, This world is violent and we have to stop making excuses and do something about it.

Originally posted by MKugs
And if you want to talk about violence, lets talk about how more than 100 of the topics on the boards right now are about Nick Berg, the man that got his HEAD CUT OFF. But that never crossed your mind right? Sure, stealing a car in a video game will corrupt are kids, so we tell them to watch the news. Boom! There is Nick Berg, or videos from Iraq, or a murder in the area, or a fire that killed a child. For gosh sakes people, everything around us is violent. The war in Iraq is violent, the Nick Berg video is violent, GTA is violent, my post is violent its all violent. Tell a child to stop playing a game in this country, and I'll show you a child fighting in a War for this country.

[edit on 17-6-2004 by MKugs]

Yor are missing one important point about violence in video games: It is glorified by rewarding you for violent actions.

You are correct, however, CNN does not show his head being cut off, they just tell you that it happened. You can actually behead someone in Vice City with a Katana blade. Don't tell me that is the same thing. Also, you can shread innocent people with a chainsaw with blood flying everywhere.

It is true that CNN and Fox talk about violence and they will even show it on TV. They do not however show it most of the time and they do not glorify it by giving you money and power ups by killing people. Please don't try compare TV to violent video games. They are not the same. A video game is interactive. You control the violence. You kill innocent people.

[edit on 6-17-2004 by nyarlathotep]

Well, what about Sim City Series? You can destroy whole cities by clicking a button. But does that mean kids will suddenly start earthquakes to wipe out whole cities? No. Blaming games is like when Hitler was blaming jews. It is just a scapegoat to cover up all the # that has been going on.

i agree with james the lesser on everything bravo, i couldn't of said it better my self.

They can fry brains! I am going to 8th grade and I know kids who can't talk about anything other than video games. It must be the only thing they do. I think it is sad you could get that obsessed over something. Those card-game things like Pokemon and Yu-gho and stuff have a similar effect. The kids who do that think it is reality. My mom or dad said that there was a dragons and dungeons thing like that a while back. However, although it is bad, we can't blame our problems on it. They aren't causing crime, that is some individuals stupid decision.

I don't wan't to be like those kids, and I got scared yesterday because I played video games instead of working on a tesla coil or marx generator! Maybe I am just more paranoid then I thought.

If anything, violent video games are an outlet for those with potentially dangerous desires for violence, to experince bloodshed. This is a good thing! It's healthy for us to enact our deep instincts to kill.

I don't think games fry your brains, they enhance your hand-eye quordination. I have to be honest though here, usually the more violent the game, the better it is.

Of course it would be better for all to the do the right thing and get some fresh air or learn a musical instrument or read a book. Playing video games is a very entertaining waste of time and energy.

[edit on 6/19/2004 by earthtone]

it's all a matter of BALANCE. there are kids with advanced martial arts training and proficiency at playing blood-drenched video games who are ALSO well-balanced and well-rounded. they excel at various forms of combat, but also indulge their more nurturing aspects. and why is that?

could their parents have wisely offset their aggressive tendencies with hobbies that called upon their more affectionate ones?

if your kid is wigging out in front of POSTAL2, get them a little kitty-cat to care for, or otherwise inject some BALANCE into their spiritual life...there's many ways to do that. parents know their offspring better than "experts" ever will.

if you ask me, the traditional religious themes we've always been absorbing [hell, damnation] have done more to warp our collective psyche than anything in the video game shop in the last ten years. yet THOSE traditions remain sacred cows, while the games in your video collection are denounced.

[ It's healthy for us to enact our deep instincts to kill. EARTHTONE]
i think i'd agree with that one, but that's a whole 'nother post.