Posted Jan 10, 2007 at 07:55AM by Ryan A. Listed in: Off Topic Tags: PS2, SMS, Dr. Chow Yuan-hua
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QuackWhile we are all gamers here and our own little virtual universe is enough to contain our wants and needs, we certainly don't want to be secluded from the rest of the real world. And so from time to time, we share with you scientific studies that reveal how the rest of the world view us.

Oftentimes, we find these studies as negative factoids for our growing culture. But there are rare occasions when these findings put our life in a good light.

Today, we'd like to share with you another study that is utterly misconducted and we believe that it has no bearing, not by a long shot.

Dr. Chow Yuan-hua, a psychiatrist at the Veterans General Hospital in Taipei, maintains that playing violent videogames result to lower language proficiency. He arrived at his conclusion by studying another emerging culture, the text-speakers.

Before we proceed, let us define textspeak. It is the process of shortening words and adding numbers to an SMS message. There are various reasons why this is being done but for most part, it is about economics and being cool. An example of this is "Mit me at my haus 2nyt", which (as we're sure you already know) "Meet me at my house tonight."

In his study, Yuan-hua used just 12 young adults as the sample population and asked them to play PS2 title Real Three Kingdoms: Nonpareil 4 Generations for 30 minutes and then no more. With that hurried experiment, if we may call it that, the psychiatrist shamelessly announced:

Reduction in blood circulation in the frontal lobe indicates that it may affect language proficiency. How far will it harm their language capability, if they play for a longer time and almost every day My findings just prove there is a statistically significant association between violence in video games and low language proficiency. Further study is urgently needed.


Our take on this? Actually he said it himself already. Further study is needed. We honestly can't comprehend how he got from point A to point B. If any of you get the rationale and the sense behind this study, please, tell us kindly.


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5 Comments


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   by hush404 - 2007-01-10
 » duh

I like de duck

   by Gazz (Unregistered) - 2007-01-10
 » Fool

1) he says "may affect language", not "does affect language".

2) The assiciation he has listed between VIOLENT video-games is not valid at all, but would be valid if he stated any video game - not just violent.

To make this a fair, scientific test, more people would need to be monitored while playing videogames (numbering in the 10,000's, of varying demographics). The types of games played would need to be grouped together and it would also make sense to test for longer than 30 mins, multiple times per test subject (person) and compared to other forms of media such as watching TV, Listening to music etc...

Only then will there be any scientific basis behind these tests, until then, they are simply the ramblings of a crazed man. How many times have so-called "experts" proven themselves to be anything but that?


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   Re: WC - 2007-01-10
 » Nope.

You can't have a scientific experiment without a control and something to measure. Saying "violent video games did not stimulate X portion of the brain" does not mean it prevents or even fails to facilitate language growth.

Why does it not necessarily 'fail to facilitate'? Because you brain needs a break. If you all you did was study, you would quickly stop learning as fast and see no gains

Also, you are incorrect about 'any video game' as there are plenty that WOULD stimulate the language areas in the brain. They just don't happen to be the most popular.
   by omega15 (Unregistered) - 2007-01-10
 » ummmm

Worst experiment ever. They don't know a crap.

   by Chinese (Unregistered) - 2007-01-10
 » Idiot.

I'm Chinese and I can assure you that Chinese people have the worst logic ever (besides solving math problems :D ). This Taiwanese "psychiatrist" is just another of those idiots.



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