Japanese study triggers worldwide debate

mumbai: does your ten-year-old son see himself as a thoroughbred pacman? or your teenaged daughter consider herself the best tomb raider around? are you, perhaps, a champion prince? maybe, then, it's time for you to pay heed to a research study made public recently. according to the findings, first reported in the london-based observer, "high-tech maps of the mind show that computer games are damaging brain development and could lead to children being unable to control violent behaviour." in effect, this means that virtual games seem to be dumbing-down gen x and pre-disposing them to violence.scientists at japan's tohoku university, led by ryuta kawashima, say they have found evidence that computer games stimulate those parts of the brain devoted to vision and movement, but do not aid the development of other important areas. the most worrying aspect, however, is that children who spend hours on these games could be endangering the development of their frontal lobes, which play a crucial role in controlling violent-laden behaviour and developing emotional intelligence. (incidentally, whenever one stops oneself from doing something undesirable, it is the frontal lobe which enables self-control.) the research team used sophisticated technologies to measure the brain activity in hundreds of teenagers playing nintendo, one of the most popular gaming consoles around. these findings were then compared with the brain scans of other students doing a simple arithmetic exercise. "these implications are very serious for a violence-laden society and these students will be doing more and more bad things if they are playing (computer) games and not doing other things like reading aloud or learning arithmetic," mr kawashima mentioned in the report. concurs harish shetty, a social psychiatrist, "computer games lead to emotional and cognitive exhaustion. the result is that children, exposed to too much gaming, are unable to concentrate on simple tasks or grasp basic concepts. in the worst case, they may not even maintain healthy peer relationships in their later life. they could get irritated quickly and become prone to violence easily." another adverse effect of gaming is what behavioural experts call the 'loner effect'. "the main problem with audio-visual gaming is that young gamers gradually begin to substitute their near and dear ones with game characters," says dr shetty. "this is why care should be taken, so that virtual characters like lara croft don't turn out to be substitutes for real-life friends." even as the anti-gaming brigade tries to create awareness about the possible negative impact, the video-game industry has pooh-poohed the research findings. according to an online trade portal, the european leisure software publishers' association (elspa) has stated that the research is only of "very limited focus". the software association asserts that it's not true that playing video-games can make children anti-social. instead, elspa quotes the findings of a recent british study which suggests that playing computer games can be as beneficial as taking part in physical sporting activity. "for too long now, our industry has been the target of ill-informed criticism and scare-mongering," the online article quotes roger bennett, director general of the association, as saying. "we want to help those who weren't brought up on computer games to understand this exciting new medium and the part that it can play in a healthy balance of learning and leisure activities for all age groups." the association is also making efforts to change the image of typical game players who are perceived to be loners, sitting for hours in front of their consoles and cut off from the rest of the world. "through the study, gaming emerges as an increasingly social activity, and gamers spend comparable amounts of time socialising with friends and family," the association explains. "the researchers concluded that the stereotype of the computer gamer as someone who spends a large amount of leisure time interacting with technology rather than other people is questionable." where, then, does the truth lie? while parents struggle to make up their minds, the 'to game or not to game' debate rages on.