“Researchers studying middle school students and college graduates have found those playing video games or watching TV for more than two hours per day were roughly twice as likely to have significant attention problems. If only they’d measured internet use, too.
Iowa State researchers studied 1,323 third, fourth, or fifth graders, along with 210 college students. Each group reported their own television and video game use and attention problems, but teachers and parents also provided input on the younger group.
The study found that those subjects who exceeded the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommended video game and television limits of two hours per day were “about 1.6 times to 2.2 times more likely to have greater than average attention problems.”
The researchers’ self-stated conclusion is that video games need to be included in factoring in children and young adults’ total screen time for attention span research. Our conclusion, after thumbing back through our distractions and attention? Modern computing and office multi-tasking should be included in future studies, too.
Have you noticed greater attention problems in yourself or others who hit the screen pretty hard each day? Does it seem odd that honing in on one game for two hours per day can seemingly lead to focus problems?”
Read more at LifeHacker
tl;dr
This article is rubbish. I’d class myself as a gamer and I don’t hav ooh shiny red ball!
This article is uttter hogwash. I play games for 4 4 hour stints, and there’s nowt wrong with…
Ooo look, I have a new MSN message.
But if they’re playing games for 4 hours straight then their attention is focused for 4 hours straight… where’s the attention problem?
hunh? wha? i was bizzy watching derren on youtube!
Hm? What d’you say?
My husband told me about a games site that had commented on this article. One of the comments was; ‘personally I will only ever buy ADHD TV’s anything else just doesn’t make the cut, they even have 3D ADHD TV’s now!!!’ …. made me giggle.
It’s interesting that they are using this research to prove that gamers are having attention problems.
Other research found in the book ‘Grown up Digital’ by Don Tapscott shows that the NetGeners (as the current generation are known by) are more analytical, and sharper than their parents, and can quickly identify spin and marketing techniques used by marketers. What they have probably found is that their attention span drifts away from the dross, and gamers only focus on that which is important to them, or of interest. And so because someone decides not to hover around drivel, does not mean they have attention problems.
Furthermore, gamers are becoming more adept at multi-tasking which is what modern living calls for. The NetGens are just adapting to a changing world.
I didn’t read this article because there’s too much freaking text and not enough video and interactive pictures! Common people get with the 21st century
I rest my case with Dwielz’ post. The reason why the gamers lack attention is because they are communicating with them in the wrong way. This is exactly what NLP is about; if someone is communicating orally with a visual person, there is bound to be confusion. Therefore, perhaps NLP needs to become interactive NLP (iNLP).
Just a mad thought!
I watch more telly in a day than most peole watch in a week & I’m, ya know, kind of, whatever.
~this is not an illness, it’s a reaction to the state that their world’s in~
tune called Attention to Deficit – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55OkH2-5wNw
speaks truth on the matter
Steven Pinker wrote something about new media in the New York Times but I’m afraid I only got about 140 characters into it before I found something else to do:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/opinion/11Pinker.html
I love how this article implies cause and effect.
Yeah people with attention problems watch more TV when they should be working, go figure.
I think games and TV are very high stimuli and therefore can be addictive, which may be why this can cause peoples’ lack of attention towards other interests which may not provide similar emotional anchoring. It therefore becomes harder to absorb information, a bit like what some of the gamers said on here. I frequently watch more that 2hrs telly a day, and enjoy watching science and nature programmes, docs, good drama and satire on telly as obviously many other people do – does this mean we have low attention spans, or an inquisitive mind?
Looks like the researchers have assumed that the TV/video game usage CAUSES the attention problems, when it could be the other way round. That is, kids with short attention spans are more likely to spend longer watching TV or playing video games.
Which sounds just as feasible.
Correlation != causation. I’m more inclined to believe that television and video games don’t cause attention problems, but that attention problems are a result of a kind of modern ennui which manifests itself in the excessive amounts of television we watch (or video games we play).
2.2 times more problems? 2.2 times what? What’s the base level? Surely many games require high levels of attention and focus? You mentioned Facebook, what other activities distract the mind and cause problems … could have been interesting if the stats had meaning. You mention this in your own books Derren
- You’re welcome to look up the original document (just follow the links) – this is not our study we simply highlight it as it’s come from LifeHacker which is usually a reliable source of information. – Phillis