The study, originally published in the Public Library of Science’s One journal, used two groups of college-age subjects: 18 ‘addicted’ individuals and 18 ‘healthy’ individuals as a control group. Everyone in the study was put through an MRI machine which scanned two parts of their brains. The result? Here’s what Scientific America had to say:
The researchers discovered several small regions in online addicts’ brains shrunk, in some cases as much as a 10 to 20 percent. The affected regions included the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, rostral anterior cingulate cortex, supplementary motor area and parts of the cerebellum.
What’s more, the longer the addiction’s duration, the more pronounced the tissue reduction. The study’s authors suggest this shrinkage could lead to negative effects, such as reduced inhibition of inappropriate behaviour and diminished goal orientation.
While some researchers believe it’s just the brain naturally pruning neural networks to make the most stimulated areas function more efficiently, other scientists believe that such shrinkage of white and grey brain matter can have an effect on decision making. Basically, gaming isn’t going to ravage your idea machine upstairs, but, you know, maybe it’s good diversify your interests. [PLoS via Scientific America]
Image via Shutterstock/corepics
Jack
Monday, June 20, 2011 at 12:20 AMWell I regulary check up on gawker sites, and other science ones.
Spend around 4 hours a day gaming.
Some days it’s 8 hours -> weekends.
On the positive side ( I think) 2500 of CSS has made my reflexes really quick.
Hope it doesn’t alter my growing brain.
Demitri
Monday, June 20, 2011 at 4:13 PMI saw a documentary about people playing world of warcraft. Where one WOW addict said when he ventures outside he sees everything as if he’s still playing the game. It does change you reality. After a few years playing myself I realised it was destroying my social life, that’s when I made the decision to stop. Trust me it was hard.
If any WOW players out there type “/played” in the game, you will see how long you have been playing the game, it’s easy to get one month in a year of playing the game. Imagine you can learn a whole new language in that time.
Franz
Monday, June 20, 2011 at 8:44 PMHonestly, video games are poison. They are downtime in your productivity (as are the effects of alcohol consumption).
They may seem fun now, but in the future no one will care about any records you set, especially when the game gets a sequel, a good example is the Gran Turismo series.
I’m not going to spit out cliches, but get yourself the hell away from video games and set yourself up for the rest of your life, study a field of science, start a business, do something, leave frequent+ gaming to the suckers.