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Home > Video Games Hurt?
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Video Games Hurt? by H. Wechsler
Still Kicking Video Games Around?
Where is the connection between Speedlearning and Video Games?
Answer: the greater your knowledge of how your brain works, theeasier you can implement tripling your reading speed and doubling your memory.
Corny, but true - information is only potential power. Potential becomes actual when information is converted into knowledge through practical usage. Our economy values ideas and inventions that improve life; we all do. It is calledKnow-How and the Electronic Age.
Indiana University has an ongoing research program on the difference betweenviolent video games and entertaining but non-violent games. It started in 2002 atthe School of Medicine by Vincent P. Mathews M.D. and W.G. Kronenberger, M.D.
So What
How they prove their research is important; they wire up the players to an fMRI(functional Magnetic Resonance Imagery) scan. The results capture the activities of specific brain structures as both violent and non-violent games are played.
Violent games activate a part of your brain called the amygdala, located in the Limbic System of your right brain. It directly runs our emotions through our Sympathetic Nervous System producing Adrenaline (epinephrine) and Dopamine.
Remember, your right brain contains the emotional controls and pattern recognition skills required for playing both violent and non-violent videos. It is not black or white; you need skills of your right brain for both kinds of videos.What you do not need is a runaway amygdala.
Left Brain
Non-violent games activate a different structure located on your left brain, specifically called the prefrontal cortex. This structure controls your attention, concentration and self-control. It is the executive functions of logic, order and reason. Wait. Non-violent videos do not turn on your right-brain amygdala.
These games are operated by our Parasympathetic Nervous System producingAcetylcholine, the hormone of relaxation, not adrenaline and its feelings ofkill or be killed and fight-or-flight.
Profound Fact: hardwiring in your brain comes from repetition activity or thoughtover a period of time. What happens is a creation of a habit that goes on autopilot.Use it or lose it is a brain reality, and so is non-use produces atrophy, death throughdisuse.
Mentally underline this: the greater your usage of a brain program, the stronger it becomes. Can you memorize this? Neurons that fire together, wire together; they strengthen the long term neural pathways in your brain.
For the brilliant stars: usage is the stimulus that keeps on giving. Repetition of use stimulates the connections (links) between the Dendrites (receivers) in yourbrain cells (neurons). Afterwards they run your programs on autopilot.
Endwords
There is a major difference on how the brain reacts to playing videos basedon the users past experience (12 months) of playing violent or non-violentgames, and seeing nutty movies of mass murder. The more violent games and DVDs in their personal history, the stronger their amygdala works to easily arouse powerful emotions in the player.
How does this modify personality and change life outside of video game playing?
The results are not conclusive, but they indicate a powerful warning. It is not viewing or playing a random game or movie that causes an adolescent to find aautomatic weapon to destroy twenty of his favorite tormentors in school.
It is the constant stimuli and mental diet of violence that causes a loss of realitybetween a game and live humans. How much? It is estimated the average teenagerspends up to 5 hours daily on the computer, TV and Video Games. Multiply by anaverage of six days weekly, and in fifty-two weeks we have a mind with a slipperyview of reality.
Last thought please: Dr. Paul MacLean is the developer of the Triune Theory of the brain. It has over a half-century of scientific acceptance, yet it scares those whoexamine its tenets. You should understand it because it reacts powerfully with your self-improvement in learning, reading and memory.
a) We have three brains in our skull, not one. Yes, really. The three are interconnected by nerve fibers.
b) Think of the three as interconnected computers.
c) The oldest, MacLean calls, the Reptilian Complex - Go Lizard and reptiles.It produces your ancient instincts and reflexes serving your survival.Remember: territoriality, aggressiveness, sex, hierarchy, rituals, survival andself-preservation; and our vegetative (automatic) functions.
d) Next, is the Limbic System, home to our emotions, and based on avoidance of pain and repetition of pleasure. Included are your amygdala, hippocampus (memory) hypothalamus, brainstem and basal ganglia. The amygdala canand does highjack our reason and logic through emotion when it deems it proper. Some find these actions dangerous and scary.
e) The newest brain is the one you are most familiar with, your Neocortex, logic, reason, linear and deductive analysis. We see it as our left and right brains and takes up 2/3 of the entire 3-pound brain territory.
f) Each of the three brains is independent of the others, separate in intelligence, memories, and subjectivity, with its own sense of time and place.
g) It is an urban myth that our Neocortex runs the show and dominants the other two. In dangerous circumstances, the Limbic System and Reptilian Complex rule the roost. When you are rejected, insulted, fired or you become frightened, envious, experience angst or distress, Limbic and Reptilian become excited to action.
h) It is the two silent brains that often decide if an idea from the neocortex gains entrance as your behavior. They have a veto power because they decide if your decision or choice feels good or bad, cool or hot.
Dr. MacLean did his basic research at Yale Medical School in 1949 and at the National Institute of Mental Health in D.C.
He called our neocortex is the mother of invention and the father of abstract thought. MacLean suggests we be more than aware of the power of our Reptilian and Limbic, and seek to control its influence over our decision-making and personality.
And now you know more about the big picture of your brain and its context(framework).
See ya,
copyright © 2007H. Bernard Wechsler
Author of Speed Learning for Professionals, published by Barron's; partner ofEvelyn Wood, creator of speed reading, graduating two million, including theWhite House staffs of four U.S. Presidents.
Interviewed by the Wall Street Journal and fortune Magazine for major articles.
http://www.speedlearning.org
About the Author
http://www.speedlearning.org
hbw@speedlearning.org (http://www.mailto:hbw@speedlearning.org)
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