"Video-Game Killing Builds Visual Skills, Researchers Report", By SANDRA BLAKESLEE
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/29/science/29VIDE.html
Quoting from the New York Times Article:
"Dr. Bavelier said the next step would be to tease the games apart to find out what aspects promoted brain changes. Are violence and danger necessary? Does this sort of brain plasticity change with age? Will it affect certain measures of intelligence?"
First, all that's being seen, here, is that, yes, nervous system function derives in experiential activation-dependence - nervous systems become what they do - nervous systems achieve TD E/I-minimization with respect to what they actually experience.
Second, there's a whole 'dimension' that's being missed by the Researchers.
That 'dimension' can be assessed via generalized behavioral observations of of =naive= shooting-game players and =naive= non-shooting-game players in =natural= settings. ["=naive=": with respect to knowledge of being studied - if the subjects know, they'll tend to 'play a game' of a different sort [which is a problem with respect to behavioral studies in general, including the 'polls' with respect to which 'modern politics' lend so much 'credance'].
Prediction: The shooting-game players will, in general, be less 'introspective'. Their decisions and knowledge bases will tend to be more-superficial. They'll tend to be more active-phase-dominant [AoK, Ap5 & 7], and more 'blindly'-automated, and will have more difficulty with respect to problems requiring long-term syntheses.
They'll tend to be 'successful', even as their 'success' dominates the decline of the Success of Society overall.
All this stuff has been transpiring for more than a decade, already, here in the U. S. A.
A way is Needed to meld the shooting-games' 'instant gratification' with the dynamics of long-term problem-solving - to make the latter commensurately-'enjoyable' to our Young folks.
Else, we're raising Generations who'll be forever 'stuck-in-the-present-moment', and the Consequences of such are Terminal re. Society's going-forward.
K. P. Collins
--
"Schmitd! Schmitd! Ve vill build a Shapel!"
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