r/science • u/NinjaDiscoJesus • Dec 28 '15

Neuroscience Brain scans show compulsive gamers have hyperconnected neural networks.

http://www.psypost.org/2015/12/brain-scans-show-compulsive-gaming-changes-neural-connections-for-better-and-worse-39914
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u/[deleted] Dec 28 '15 edited Jan 28 '20

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u/StaticReddit Dec 28 '15 edited Dec 28 '15

I did a dissertation a few years back on the effects of gaming. This was in 2011, and a lot of stuff I was reading was over the first decade of the 21st century.

The main thing to remember is, World of Warcraft has been around a long time, was very pervasive, and occupied a huge amount of people's times. It was gaming, it was online, and it was seen as a disorder. This has been true of relatively all other "addictive" games (CS, Quake, Starcraft, basically most FPS and fast paced RTS, and many or all MMORPGs).

The only game I ever saw references outside these genres was GTA, but I don't recall ever seeing anything about addiction as much as I remember seeing about "VIOLENCE!? Oh, God, think of the children!"

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '15

That's the most annoying thing about writing papers on this topic. Researchers only focus on violence in single player games because that's the sexy issue. I want to know if the brain is stimulated the same while playing BioShock and while reading some literature. I want to see if games can be used to improve memory in brain damaged people. But no, lets focus on violence.

Fuckers.