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THE BATTALION
Video game vigilance
Addiction, seizures can result from game over exposure
By Noni Sridhara
The Battalion
At the tender age of seven, freshman com
puter engineering major Dave Baker spent
hours on end in front of video games. To this
day he still refers to himself as an “addict.”
Cases among youth similar to Baker’s are
what prompted Dr. Steve Dorman, a profes
sor of health and kinesiology at Texas A&M,
to investigate the effects of video games on
youth.
“Some kids have a pathological preoccu
pation with video games,” he said. “Having
kids who play video games, I have been in
terested in the application of technology to
health education for elementary- and middle-
school- age children,” Dorman said.
The main focus of Dorman’s research ef
forts is to examine the health effects and see
whether there are serious drawbacks to the
prolonged amount of time children spend in
front of the video monitor.
“One of the main drawbacks we found as
sociated with the video games is that kids
who possess a photosensitive epilepsy are
prone to develop seizures,” Dorman said.
He said the rapid images that contain
certain types of flashes on the screen, the
strobelight-like visual effects and the way
the images are projected on the screens,
induce the seizures in these children. So
far, there have been 50 documented cases.
“This kind of epilepsy is known as
‘dark wanior epilepsy’ and the only treat
ments are to either prescribe anticonvulsant
drugs or abstaining for a few days from the
video games,” he said.
When asked why children did not devel
op such severe reactions to watching car
toons on television, like the recent Pokemon
craze, Dorman said one explanation was that
most children do not sit as close to the tele
vision as they do their computers.
Another problem with extended time be
ing spent playing video games is Ninten-
dinitis, an injury characterized by severe
pain in the tendon between the thumb and
pointer from continually clicking and press
ing buttons.
Video games may also cause aggression.
Dorman compared violent video games to vi-
“Some kids have a
pathological preoccu
pation with video
games/'
— Dr. Steve Dorman
professor of health and kinesiology at
Texas A&M
olence in television and said that violent
video games may arouse children the same
way violent cartoons do.
“We need further research in this area, but
studies show that children tend to model what
they experience in video games,” he said.
As some may think, Dorman said aban
doning video games altogether is not the so
lution. He said video games have positive as
pects, including enhancing certain skills like
spatial visualization, the ability to rotate and
twist two-and three-dimensional objects
mentally.
“In many of these video games there are
objects such as blocks and triangles that they
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[the players] have to constantly move
around,” Dorman said.
“This really helps children develop better
understandings of units of space and time,
which helps them become high achievers in
math and science as they grow up.”
Dorman said the one drawback to the
knowledge gained from games is that some
children who use video games as a learning
tool, or what he calls “edutainment media,”
expect all learning activities to be fun.
Some students are not as inclined to learn
at school if the activities are not fun.
As the information technology age pro
gresses and children as young as two years
old play on a computer, Dorman said, video
games are not going away.
Jon Louis, manager of Hastings Books,
Music, and Video in College Station, said
Hastings makes $90,000 per quarter on the
sales of video games.
Baker said, because of his major, he
spends almost all day in front of the
computer.
“I still use playing video games as a form
of relaxation,” he said.“Besides sporadic mi
graines, I have not noticed any major
side effects.”
Dorman said he has not done any studies
on the effects of video games on students af
ter middle school, but he said he may study
that in the future.
In the meantime, Dorman advises parents
and others to be vigilant of the time their chil
dren spend playing video games and impose
reasonable limits.
“Using these games will provide us with
innovative ways to improve health in chil
dren and adults who live in an increasingly
technologically based world,” he said.
Ancient
Bacteria
250-million-year-old
bacteria found in salt
(AP) — In what sounds like
something out of Jurassic Park,
bacteria that lived before the di
nosaurs and survived Earth’s
biggest mass extinction have been
reawakened after a 250-million-
year sleep in a salt crystal, scien
tists say.
The bacteria’s age easily beats
longevity records set by other or
ganisms revived from apparent
suspended animation — not to
mention Hollywood’s Jurassic
Park dinosaurs, cloned from pre
historic DNA encased in amber.
If the discovery by Pennsylva
nia and Texas researchers holds
true, the bacteria could open a
window onto a prehistoric world
that was both dying and being re
born. It would also show the
tenacity of life in the toughest con
ditions.
Its genetic makeup also could,
help biologists calibrate the evolu
tionary clock for the bacterium and
its present-day relatives, said Rus- k
sell Vreeland, a study author and
biologist at Pennsylvania’s West
Chester University.
DNA tests indicate the prehis
toric germ is related to present-day
Bacillus, a type of bacteria found
in soil, water and dust.
“We all feel reasonably com
fortable that this particular organ
ism isn’t going to attack anything,”
Vreeland said.
The organism was found in a-
tiny, fluid-filled bubble inside a. 4;,
salt crystal 1,850 feet under-:-]
ground, about 30 miles east ol*]'
Carlsbad, N.M.
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